In Manatee County, when you want your student to be retained, you can’t

Every quarter since at least the third grade, the report card reads the same. Failing grades in the core subjects and a check mark from the teacher, warning Nick Kimon and Samantha Martin that their daughter is in danger of being retained.

Despite those warning signs, the child — who has also scored a low Level 2, or “below satisfactory” on the state-mandated FCAT and FSA exams — has been promoted each year.

This year, Martin decided to do something.

“It had just gone way too far,” she told the Bradenton Herald. They asked to not name their daughter for her privacy.

Kimon and Martin tried to enroll their daughter at Anna Maria Elementary School, even though the child had already completed fifth grade at Sea Breeze Elementary School. They were turned away. When Martin called the district, she was told there is no formal appeals process in place for parents who want their children to be kept back.

So their daughter has started sixth grade at King Middle School, which is already stressing the child out because she is so far behind academically.

In Florida, individual districts are responsible for their promotion and retention policies. In every grade level except third and eighth grades — for which state statutes dictate whether a student is promoted or retained — the Manatee School District is retaining a lower percentage of students than the state average.

Advocates say this allows children to stay with their same-aged peers and keeps them on schedule for an on-time graduation. Critics says all social promotion does is push children through the system and compounds the academics issue and puts the children even further behind.

The conversation in Florida has focused on whether to allow high-achieving and academically prepared students who don’t take the state-mandated third-grade FSA test to be promoted to the fourth grade. But the conversation Kimon and Martin want to have is about the students who aren’t academically ready to be promoted to the next grade, but are being pushed along anyway.

“No parent wants to hold their child back,” Martin said. “But she doesn’t meet the promotion requirements, period.”

‘Social promotion’ vs retention

Martin can’t believe her daughter has continuously been promoted to the next grade, and said she thinks the only reason it’s being done is to keep her daughter in with the same group of students she started with, an idea called “social promotion.” But advocates say intervention and remediation can help the student get back on track.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is retention, or having a student who is academically behind repeat a grade. This allows children who are not on grade level to spend another year with the same material.

But research also shows that students who are retained can be in greater danger of dropping out and failing to earn a high school diploma, because they feel ashamed and stigmatized for having to repeat a grade.

“It’s a definite balancing act,” said Terry Osborn, the regional vice chancellor for academic and student affairs and a professor of education at University of South Florida,Sarasota-Manatee.

The state tracks each district’s retention data. In Manatee, the biggest percentage of students who repeat a grade are retained after third grade, the first year of state-mandated testing. Students who score a Level 1 or Level 2, with Level 1 the lowest of five levels, on the state exam are automatically flagged for retention.

Still, many students who score a Level 1 or Level 2 are promoted to fourth grade using some type of “good cause” promotion, mainly looking at the classwork the student has done to show how the student is actually performing on grade level.

For the 2014-15 year, Manatee County retained 385 out of 4,148 third-grade students, or about 9.3 percent, higher than the overall state retention rate of third grade students at 4.3 percent.

Manatee County also retained 7.3 percent of eighth-grade students at the end of the 2014-15 year, with 262 of 3,577 students being held back. Statewide, the percentage rate was 3.2 percent.

In every other grade level, Manatee retains a lower percentage of students than the state percentage.

“Unless there’s some extra mitigating factors beyond the norm, that (retention) is not our solution,” said Cynthia Saunders, Manatee County’s deputy superintendent of instruction. In the past three years or so, Saunders said only a handful of parents have requested their child be retained.

Retaining a student does little to actually help close the gap and help the student, Saunders said. The targeted intervention and remediation is a better solution than just having the student repeat the grade.

In elementary school, remediation is built into the daily schedule for teachers to do small breakouts or sessions and target the children who need the most help. Once students hit middle or high school, they are placed into intensive reading or math classes if they need more help.

“It is our job to make sure we’re closing the gap in those situations and making sure the students are academically prepared,” Saunders said.

A parent’s right

Martin thinks her daughter would be best served if she could repeat the fifth grade.

“A parent knows what’s best for their child,” she said. “I just want her to have a shot.”

And Martin thinks her daughter would be best afforded that shot if she could re-do the fifth grade and get all the intervention she needs, but at a fifth-grade, not sixth-grade, level. That’s why Kimon and Martin tried to enroll her at Anna Maria Elementary, instead of at a middle school at the beginning of the year.

Although Saunders said she can’t talk about the case individually, school officials think Martin’s daughter would be served best by moving on to the sixth grade.

“We do not retain just on a parent’s request, just as we can’t promote just on parent’s request,” she said.

Again, the basic issue is a balancing act, said USF’s Osborn.

“No one knows the child better than the parents, that’s a basic truth of being a parent. But no one knows education better than the people who work as professionals at our school every day,” he said. “Sometimes, they have a difference of opinion. There’s going to have to be somebody who has to make that call.”

This story was originally published August 20, 2016 at 10:00 AM with the headline "In Manatee County, when you want your student to be retained, you can’t."