Knox County parents will be notified if their children are at risk of retention under new state reading requirements, with options for retesting or summer intervention.

In an rare move of bipartisanship, the State Senate sent legislation to Governor Lee’s desk Wednesday that should ease some of the concerns parents have about their children repeating the fourth grade.The state estimates roughly 6 to 10 thousand fourth-graders are at risk for retention under a provision of the state’s Third-Grade Retention law.

Tennessee lawmakers have expressed a desire to reduce the number of fourth-graders held back this summer under new state reading requirements, but with the legislative session winding to a close, there’s still disagreement on the best way to make that happen.Two different bills are advancing through House committees that would address the issue and a recent House committee meeting illustrated the potential challenges that may lie ahead deciding on one of them.

Members of the House K-12 Subcommittee voted Tuesday to advance a bill designed to reduce the number of fourth-grade students held back under the state’s new Third-Grade Retention Law.The new law allows third-graders who fail to show reading proficiency on state tests in the spring of their third-grade year to advance to the fourth grade through summer school and/or tutoring in their fourth-grade year. Those children who receive tutoring still need to show “adequate growth” on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) in the fourth-grade to advance to the fifth-grade.

When Tennessee lawmakers return to Nashville from this week’s snow delay, fourth-grade retention may very well succeed last year’s heated debate over third-grade retention.Last Wednesday’s discussion in the Senate Education Committee with new Tennessee Department of Education Commissioner Lizette Reynolds brought a preview of what that debate may look like.