EVSD implements new retention policy

In the past parents in the East Valley School District have had the final say in whether their child was held back a grade. But after the school board passed a new policy last month, the final determination now rests with the principal.

The policy will take effect during the 2008-09 school year, said Jan Beauchamp, assistant superintendent for academics. Even though it’s called a retention policy, it’s really aimed more at getting students to participate in academic interventions such as after-school programs and summer school, she said. The policy was changed at the request of several principals, said East Valley Middle School Principal Mark Purvine. He was part of a group compiling statistics required by the federal No Child Left Behind law that noticed students who had been recommended for academic intervention but didn’t participate continued to struggle years later. Students participating in summer school and other programs, meanwhile, showed gains.

“We’ve seen success with those students,” Purvine said. “We’ve seen improvement in grades and improvement in performance standards like the WASL.”

The reasons students didn’t participate in programs varied. Some thought the problem would fix itself or couldn’t fit it into their schedule. Some students were referred to programs year after year, he said. “We’ve got kids who have been referred to things and never attended,” Purvine said.

Chiere Martyn, principal of Skyview/CCS, said retention isn’t a big problem in her school. “We probably have a couple a year,” she said, and those students tend to be very young. “That’s the place where retentions tend to be the most successful.”

She said she can only recall one time that she thought strongly that a child should be held back and she was overridden by the parents. The majority of parents seem glad to get academic help for their child, though there are exceptions. “We always have a small group of people who have refused to let their student participate,” she said.

Martyn doesn’t anticipate that the new policy will cause a significant increase in the number of students being held back. “I certainly don’t see us having wholesale, huge numbers of retentions,” she said.

Leslee McLachlan, president of East Valley Education Association, said the new policy doesn’t refer to academic interventions, just retention. “My concerns are that it doesn’t quite read to me the way that they’re talking about,” said McLachlan, who teaches kindergarten at East Farms Elementary. “It doesn’t speak directly to participating in summer school activities.”

The policy also doesn’t spell out the procedures required to retain a student. “A review process needs to be established and clearly outlined for the teachers,” she said. “It sounds like they have an idea of what the process is going to be, but they haven’t fleshed it out.”

But despite those concerns, she agrees that the new policy could be helpful. “If every avenue is exhausted then the principal has the authority to retain,” she said. “Almost every time when I tried to retain a child and they (parents) didn’t do it, I hear from their teacher next year.”

The problem is that learning is so accelerated now that if a student falls behind, it’s difficult for them to catch up. Things are a lot different than when she began teaching in 1974, she said. “What I was teaching in second grade, I’m now teaching in kindergarten in half a day.”

Any decision to hold back a student will be made after the teacher, parents and principal discuss options and the student has the opportunity to participate in after-school programs, student study teams and summer school, Beauchamp said. The team making the recommendation is the same; just the person who makes the final decision is different. “It really doesn’t look any different than what we do now,” she said. “We already have a process that’s working really well. It’s about the whole team looking at the whole child. It’s certainly not a quick decision.”

The goal is to have students participate in the intervention programs. If students are participating in the programs, they will likely still be promoted even if they’re not quite where they should be, she said. “We’ll keep working with them.”

Kids won’t have as much leeway if they don’t participate in the academic programs. “There is an implied threat, I suppose,” Purvine said. “The vast majority of students are very capable of passing their classes. The reason that most people who fail is because of missing work. Students who take advantage of those programs are going to be successful. They won’t be held back.”

Both Purvine and Beauchamp anticipate a higher demand for after-school programs and summer school, particularly in the middle school grades. Just how much higher remains to be seen. “It’s possible we will need more staff,” Beauchamp said. “It will be manageable.”