[RunItUpTheGut]

No excuse, and never mentioned anyone getting cheated. It is perfectly legal and is justified to do for many reasons. Just saying if you are comparing talent, it is useful to have ages vs grade level. I know on this site and in high school bball discussions in general, grade level is king. However, there is a reason AAU is based on age and not grade level, so talent can be evaluated more accurately and efficiently. I promise you, if you have a college coach trying to decide who to offer between two fairly equal kids and one is a 19 year old senior and the other is a 17 year old senior, the 17 year old gets the nod in most cases. That is my point.... At the end of the day, if holding a kid back is in the best interest of the kid and it helps them develop into a better athlete, in turn, allowing them more time to develop which helps them get a free higher education, that is awesome and warms my heart. However, all of us know of kids who were already well advanced beyond there age level and were still held back by their parents (lots of times against the kids wishes) so the parent can live vicariously through the child and fuel their own need for a higher socio-economic status.

My point is if your kids birthday is August 1st, he or she will either be the youngest kid in the grade above, or the oldest kid in the grade below.
There are several kids who are 17 when they graduate. All of the holdbacks have to be 18 at least until that august deadline.
In all seriousness, how many girls are playing that graduate at 19 or almost 19but wasn't held back? Parents send there kids to school late all of the time. Since there never held back, unless you personally know them, you wouldn't know they were old enough to be in the grade ahead, making them the same age as other holdbacks, and yet they were never held back.
I think its pretty white and black. As long as your not 19 before august first, you are good to go, even if you've been held back twice.
As for the AAU thing, im with HDE on that one, I don't remember any girls AAU leagues or teams based on age. To my knowledge its not like you see with boys 17 and under and so on.