Around this time last year, a conversation began at one of my schools to retain a fourth grade student who had arrived last August from Puerto Rico. I tried in the early conversations with the student’s teachers why retention was not a good idea. At first, my expertise as a language and linguistic expert was accepted. The main reason for retention was that the student was a year younger than all of her classmates and was immature. My argument was if immaturity was a reason to retain a student, then virtually every third grade boy would have to be retained as well.
Eventually the tension over retention came to a head and an SST/RTI meeting set up. In preparation for this meeting, I began looking for research for and against retention…because I had an idea of why I didn’t think retention for English learners (ELs) was a good idea, but I wanted to know why I felt that way or if I should.
I went into the research really with an open mind. I looked for research in favor and against retention of ELs. To my surprise, I did not find any research that supported retention. At the SST meeting, after listening to the team of teachers, I tried to present my research, but was basically shouted down and shut out. No one really wanted to hear my point of view. I left that meeting feeling completely defeated.
During the meeting with the parent at the end of the school year, the team of teachers ended up abdicating their professional responsibility to give the parent an informed perspective and told her that they would abide by whatever decision she made. At the time the mother wanted to take the summer to think about it. Over that time, I sent the mother my research and a personal letter that I did not think their was a reason, academically or otherwise, to retain her daughter.
At the beginning of this school year, in the end, the mother decided to have her daughter retained…not because she really needed to be, but because her cousin who would be coming from P.R. and they could be in the same grade. Ugh.
Retention seems to be a yearly topic that comes up time and again. Below is a link to my research.