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Fair point that I admit I hadn't considered. However thinking about it further, number of years in school wouldn't be the only factor determining financial impact to society. A quick google search provides studies showing significant economic impact by children and adolescents with various issues. I don't know whether there have been studies on how retention might affect those costs. It would be interesting to know.
And it would be interesting to know for our specific case what the two outcomes would be. Of course, there's no way to know that.
Well, there is - if you are really certain this is the right course, put them in private school for a year and then switch them back to public. You could even do this at the next "milestone" - middle school. Not ideal, but if you feel that strongly it is an option. I know a few kids who switched to public from Catholic school at my kids' middle school, so they wouldn't necessarily be alone.
It can be done, but there has to be a valid reason. They will not just retain a child to make them the older end of the class. You also can't retain a child in Wake without the previous school recommending it. My daughter had just finished 1st grade when we moved. She was a preemie with ADHD and was recieving alot of services and had an IEP. All in NY agreed that she should be retained for social issues (immaturity)but no one would write that recommendation on paper. Without that written down, Wake can only do what her last school was going to do, which was promote her to 2nd grade. They didn't know her so they had nothing to go on but NY school's record. The principle here said she would re visit the idea of retention after her first year here. She is now repeating second grade and is thriving. It was absolutely the right decision for her. My advice would be if your child is doing well, don't worry about it. I have known many who were on the younger side and have done very nicely.
Without an academic reason, I don't see how you would have a leg to stand on with WCPSS. After all, academics is their job. If your other reasons are social/emotional/developmental, ask the school what services they can provide or recommend.
I myself have tried twice to have my ADHD daughter retained. Her grades are horrible at best (even with her IEP and other services). The principle has refused to retain her in the second grade (now she's in 3rd grade). Funny, because in New York i was certain that she was going to be retained in Kindergarten, but every year she gets promoted.
I think that they (Wake county) secretly will not retain a child with an IEP.
I myself have tried twice to have my ADHD daughter retained. Her grades are horrible at best (even with her IEP and other services). The principle has refused to retain her in the second grade (now she's in 3rd grade). Funny, because in New York i was certain that she was going to be retained in Kindergarten, but every year she gets promoted.
I think that they (Wake county) secretly will not retain a child with an IEP.
It really depends. As I have said, my daughter is repeating 2nd grade here. No school wants to retain a child with an IEP because it's like saying the extra help and services of the IEP did not work. That is what NY school told me even though they all agreed she should and needed to be retained. I just got very lucky to have a principal that was willing to use common sense and do what was best for the child. She agreed that in my daughters case, the extra year of maturity would serve her greatly. And it has. She is confident and getting the work for the first time. She is fitting in nicely with her peers (size wise and maturity wise) and no longer has to contend with people referring to her as being so tiny she must be a baby. She will never be the average or biggest in her class, but she didn't need to be the youngest and smallest with all the other issues life handed her. As a side note concerning spending- now that she is getting the work and building on her basics, she is requiring less and less services. I don't know if it evens out, but I would imagine the schools pay alot for the extra services given. And the added bonus is that the child can build on the basics that they now "GET" and learn from there on their own in class.
A lot of this has to do with the way NCLB rules work. If they hold your child back, then they get penalized in the metrics, which can affect their funding and other things. It's bs imo but unfortunately that's the way it works these days.
A lot of this has to do with the way NCLB rules work. If they hold your child back, then they get penalized in the metrics, which can affect their funding and other things. It's bs imo but unfortunately that's the way it works these days.
That's why I suspected. Their must be some secret reason behind how they can agree my daughter ISN'T learning the material. But they refuse my request to have her retained. So I figured that it must have been some legal working in a IEP or something that they are scared of. That's why they keep doing this social promotion which I have never been a fan of. Each grade a child doesn't learn the material it only means twice the work the next grade since everything we learn in school is cumulative.
I myself have tried twice to have my ADHD daughter retained. Her grades are horrible at best (even with her IEP and other services). The principle has refused to retain her in the second grade (now she's in 3rd grade). Funny, because in New York i was certain that she was going to be retained in Kindergarten, but every year she gets promoted.
I think that they (Wake county) secretly will not retain a child with an IEP.
No doubt about that but honestly your DD sounds like my son, and retaining probably won't help. My DS has a September b'day so we held him and his twin back in NURSEY school, LOL. Even being a year older already, he struggles mightily. I wouldn't hold him back even if given the chance. But an IEP doesn't help. When I lived in NY, if your child was receiving preschool intervention services (which is paid for by the school district there) they would NOT let you retain your child before kindergarten. If s/he was 5 by December 1, they were going to kindy.
My child is repeating 2nd grade right now at a Wake County elementary school. The child had an IEP for developmental delays, something that is no longer applicable once a child reaches the age of 8. At the 8th birthday, eligibility for services changes drastically and requires that a doctor provide a specific diagnosis.
It took a conference between both parents, the Principal, the child's prior 2nd grade teacher, and two specialists the child sees at school (remedial reading specialist and OT specialist for fine motor delays/handwriting) to get what we wanted. We also had a doctor's diagnosis of ADHD "inattentive" in our corner, and a letter that we had composed very carefully and sent to all parties involved before the conference took place.
The only advice that I can give you is this-
We got the letter in the spring that they are required to send letting us know that our child is being considered for retention, and then the final decision letter stating that the decision was "promotion with intervention". It was then and ONLY then that we requested a meeting with the Principal. We let the process play out the way the district requires it to.
It was difficult, but we kept the meeting all business. No raised voices or tears-just a thorough and detailed explanation as to why we wanted to retain the child. School personnel were divided on the issue, but in the end I truly believe that the tone of the meeting and the depth of our preparedness made the difference. In the end it was the Principal's decision, and he reversed the original decision and permitted us to retain our child.
I also think that it did not hurt that we have been active parents within the school community all along. We know all of the administrators and attend most school fundraisers and other events. I am certainly glad that we knew everyone in that conference room on a first name basis before our retention meeting took place.
If we had it to do over again we would have not started our child in Kindergarten until a year later than we did. It was a very emotional decision to pursue retention in the first place on many levels-we were concerned about peer reaction/bullying as well as how to deliver the news to our child, and all of this was weighing on us long before we actually knew the outcome and then had to follow thru on by telling the child.
Our child is doing much better this year, finishing up the first quarter of track 4 year round with a much more positive attitude and a feeling that they are where they need to be. New friends have been made and for the most part the old ones have not caused any angst. Our child looks forward to school every day. 3rd grade would have eaten our child alive.
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