No school has done a more vigorous job of enforcing the state's ban on social promotion than Oak View Elementary School in Huntington Beach. Last year the school held back a third of its population or 249 students in a move that made newspaper headlines and stunned the community.
Teachers, who belong to the Ocean View Teachers Association, have taken a lot of heat. But they support their school's stance against promoting students who fail.
"When this first happened, we got a lot of bad publicity," says fourth-grade teacher Elizabeth Garcia. "People got the wrong idea, probably because this is a Hispanic school. But we've risen to the occasion and embraced everything that has happened as being for the best."
Dwight Bletscher uses visual aids to help students.
"We got some hot press, but we don't apologize," says fifth-grade teacher Dwight Bletscher. "Many of these kids needed extra time to mature and catch up academically."
The decision to promote or retain students was based upon multiple measures, including report cards, math and English assessment tests, basic skills tests and SAT-9 scores. Students judged to be at risk of failure were assessed three times a year to see if they were making progress. Parents were asked to attend conferences throughout the year. Both students and parents were asked to sign an "assistance plan" listing areas that needed improvement, with sections marked "student responsibility" and "parent responsibility."
Teachers expect that fewer students will be retained in the future, because school policy prohibits retention of students more than once in elementary school or middle school. They also expect intervention programs to have an impact, including literacy programs, after-school homework clubs and a six-week summer school "reading academy." (The school also offers parenting classes and English classes for parents.)
Retained students were not put in special classes - with the exception of kindergarten but - were assigned different homeroom teachers than the previous year.
"We discussed at great length whether to keep the retained kids together," recalls Bletscher. "We decided against isolating, separating and segregating them. None of these things sounded good to us. We thought we could meet their needs in a regular classroom with some additional programs."
The mass retentions have brought about positive changes on the campus, say those who work there. Students are trying harder and accomplishing more. Circulation at the local library annex is up by nearly 50 percent from the previous year. Intervention programs during the summer have waiting lists. More parents attend school meetings.
"Parents take attendance seriously. Kids don't stay home just because it's raining," says Francesca Toberman, a third-grade teacher. "And I've noticed a decrease in kids taking off for weeks at a time to go to Mexico when school is in session."
Teachers say most students are not traumatized by being held back, and view their retention as a chance to "catch up" rather than as a punishment. Because so many were retained, there is no stigma for those repeating a grade.
"Case in point," says Garcia. "I have one little girl in my class who was retained last year. Her attitude is very positive. She says, 'I'm going to work very hard and do things differently this year.' She asks for extra homework. Students know this is a second chance, and want to make the most of it instead of being bitter or wasting it away."
Parents have not fought the school's retention policy, says Garcia. "Most of them come from Mexico, where students must pass a test at the end of the year to be promoted to the next grade. Parents are saying, 'Thank God you are finally doing it this way.' Some of these parents repeated grades a few times, too."
Nearly all of the students are second-language learners, but are prohibited from being taught in their own language under Prop. 227. Garcia says that the retentions have stimulated children to learn English faster.
"We have pushed these children and their parents into feeling more comfortable with having to learn English," she says. "Before, they would hang onto Spanish. I'm encountering a lot more parents and students who are becoming more fluent because they are not as gun-shy."
"Students shouldn't be held back just because they don't speak English," says Toberman. "But if you just pass them along, what happens when they get to middle school? One extra year in elementary school won't hurt them as much socially as being held back in middle school, or having them drop out in high school because they can't keep up."
"The emphasis here is to catch students as early as possible," says Bletscher. "If you are going to retain them, you should do it early in a child's school career rather than waiting until they have had years of failure. The same goes for intervention programs - the earlier the better."
"We have given these kids a gift of time," says kindergarten teacher Tammie Gillespie. "They needed time to learn English and time to mature. Last year many children in my class were exposed to things they were not ready for. If they had gone to first grade, they would have been drowning. This time, it's clicking for most of them and falling into place.
