Districts held back fewer students than expected

Angelique Flores

A fraction of the hundreds of students identified in the fall as

at-risk students in local elementary and middle schools will be held back

a grade, officials said.

Last year, the state ended social promotion for students and required

schools to create standards for advancing students to the next grade

level. As a result, a number of students who may have moved up in the

past are now being held back. However, tutoring programs, testing and

summer school have lowered the initial estimates.

At Ocean View School District, the rate has lowered by more than half.

Last fall, the district had 1,254 students identified as being in danger

of being held back. But, the final number of students retained was 604 --

6% of the total student population, Supt. James Tarwater said.

“We’ve never seen such gains with kids,” Tarwater said.

Oak View Elementary School, which has a large Spanish-speaking

population, was one of the schools that had district officials concerned.

Earlier this year, testing showed 355 students were at risk of being held

back. Tarwater said that intervention programs helped to lower the

retention number to 244, or 33% of all Oak View students.

Ocean View plans to build a preschool at Oak View for 3- and

4-year-olds and a two-year kindergarten that could serve up to 192

students using a $523,000 state grant for preschools. The district hopes

to open the preschool in January.

The program is specifically aimed at preventing retention at Oak View.

“We’re convinced that we want to set the tone for the kids and

students that we’re serious in education,” Tarwater said. “We’re hoping

this will wake them up. We don’t want them to drop out in high school.”

Tarwater said some of the eighth-graders in his district were reading

at the third-grade level. With the threat of retention, students seem to

be taking school more seriously.

“We can look at it two ways: as being punitive for the kids or that we

want those kids to be successful,” Tarwater said.

So far, Ocean View has had 17 appeals from parents of retained

students -- none of which were from Oak View. Two are still in the

appeals process, but the decision to retain the students was upheld in 15

cases.

Tarwater said he hopes to cut down the retention rate to 2% next year.

“Does [holding students back] break your heart? A little bit. But now

those kids can leave being at grade level and be performing,” Tarwater

said. “That makes all the difference. I want them in the classroom.”

At Huntington Beach City School District, 250 students in the third

through fifth grades were identified as at risk in the fall. Forty

students in kindergarten through eighth grade will be retained, which is

0.5% percent of the district’s students. The district does not assess

students in kindergarten, first or second grade as being at risk, but

they are assessed at the end of the year for retention.

District officials said the retention recommendations have not been

appealed.

Lynn Bogart, the district’s director of curriculum and instruction,

said she thinks students and parents are taking school more seriously

now.

“What’s important is that we have a systematic way of identifying

these students early on as being at risk,” Bogart said. “We try to

intervene not retain.”

Part of that intervention will soon come in the form of an

intervention teacher. It is a new position for the district. The teacher,

Jennifer Shepard, will be on special assignment at schools throughout the

district, assisting teachers with monitoring students’ progress and

demonstrating methods and strategies to improve intervention programs.

“That’s a good next step we’re taking,” Bogart said.

The district also plans to continue with after-school programs, summer

school and remedial summer school.

Fountain Valley School District does not yet have a final count of

students who will be retained, said Susan Grantham, executive assistant

to Supt. Marc Ecker.

Sixty-one students, less than 1% of the student population, are still

identified as being at risk, Grantham said.

The students are all enrolled in summer school and will take an exam

this week for a final assessment of whether they will be retained. The

district will mail notification letters to parents in August, she said.