School districts across the state should learn this week what students could be held back under the state’s new Third-Grade Retention Law.The Tennessee Department of Education expects to be able to send that information to districts by May 19. Districts will then check to see if any of those students meet exemptions to the new law and then inform parents.That means families could know as early as next week if their child is in jeopardy of being held back.The Tennessee General Assembly passed the Third-Grade Retention Law in 2021 to ensure students who showed a need for additional support in reading on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) receive it before being promoted to fourth grade.The law faced criticism from those who worry it may do more harm than good holding students back a grade based solely on those TCAP test scores and the General Assembly passed several changes that will go into effect for the 2023/2024 school year to reduce the number of kids impacted.With the law being implemented this year, Williamson County Schools is already planning on addressing the students who need support.During this week's Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Jason Golden said that there will be very detailed conversations between parents and teachers about how they intend to comply with the law and provide those supports while also accommodating parents and students over the summer if things like custodial agreements come into play.One of the supports that will be offered is summer school. There is a potential for a requirement for third grade students on the cusp of being retained to take summer school as a condition of promotion to fourth grade.“The structure is designed where no one has to go and no one rather has to be retained. And the essence of it is if you go to summer school, if you do the tutoring based on which category you follow, you don’t have that requirement,” said Golden.The district will also be offering an online TCAP retake. The retake could be available starting next week as well and will remain accessible to students until a few days following the last day of school.Superintendent Golden is encouraging parents to be on the lookout for these conversations with their principals next week.“We know that reading is important. We know that for us it starts for many of our students, many of our children even before kindergarten with our early childhood programs that serves students with disabilities and peers and with our Pre-K program, but we really hit that in earnest with kindergarten. We very much appreciate the sentiment and the thoughts behind this third-grade law, and this year we’re going to implement it. And boy, we’re gonna find out where we’re at,” said Golden.Over the course of this year’s legislative session, more than a dozen bills were passed seeking to change or modify the Third-Grade Retention law. Leaders from both parties came together to work on a bill that adds an additional test for students to take to advance to the fourth grade, and an appeal process for parents.The bill also contains similar interventions to the ones Williamson County are offering their students this year such as summer school and will assign tutors and reading supports to students who are retained.The legislation faced some opposition from those who felt that it did not address the concerns families have with the Third-Grade Retention law and the tests that are used to determine student literacy.Despite those concerns, it breezed through the House and Senate with supporters believing that it was a good step forward to addressing concerns about the law while still keeping the reading requirements in place.
