Everyone agrees that all students have suffered a learning loss during this COVID Pandemic. The question becomes will everyone be promoted or will some children be retained! This is a very difficult decision for teachers to make with no standardized testing and limited in-person contact with students.
What you should know is that most students are retained because of poor reading skills. Also, the depressing fact about retention is that it is rarely successful. Students simply don't get the help that they require. And ultimately, too many retained students eventually drop out before graduating from high school.
We suggest that you do the following things to avoid having your child retained:
- Make sure the child gets an adequate amount of sleep and nutritious meals.
- Show school officials the research on the failure of retention to help students.
- Make sure the school investigates if your child has a learning disability that needs to be addressed.