Strike Zone

[tarheelcoach]

I am a school coach who has started doing some rec umpiring as a prelude to moving up to the HS ranks when I stop coaching.
Tonight the coach was giving me a hard time about my strike zone. This is the same community in which I coach, and he kept saying "These aren't HS kids, they are 9 years old." He thought my zone was tight.
I give them the benefit of the doubt vertically, but nothing horizontally. My feeling is that 9 year olds can still hit a pitch a little low or a little high, but there's no way they can cover a pitch off the plate, especially the smaller kids.

What do you think? How do you adjust your zone for the lower levels?