Medford retention policy gets overhaul
“The research is conclusive on the negative impacts of retention,” said elementary principal Dan Miller, adding the solution is that the district should intervene and provide layers of support to ensure children don’t fall through the cracks.
Miller’s comments came Tuesday morning as members of the Medford School District Policy Committee worked to refine the district’s policies regarding holding students back if they fail to meet reading proficiency goals. A state law requires districts to have a policy in place by July 1 to hold students back in grade 3 if they do not meet reading levels on the states testing. The law includes the options for creating personalized reading plans, having intensive reading summer school programs and other options for students with individualized education plans (IEPs) to be able to advance to grade 4.
“Society and legislators believe too many are falling through cracks,” said board president Dave Fleegel, noting that while this may happen in larger districts, he did not see it being the case in Medford.
Miller emphasized that just because the student doesn’t pass the state test doesn’t mean the district will have to hold them back to repeat third grade. He explained there may be multiple reasons why a student may not excel on the test but may be reading proficiently, giving the example of
See MEDFORD on page 4 students with ADHD who cannot focus during the time limits on the test, but retains the information when they read it at their own pace.
Fleegel agreed and noted that while the district has to tell parents of the negative impacts of holding students back a grade, there are also negative lifelong impacts to not being able to read.
One of the options for allowing children to advance to the next grade is to have them in an intensive summer reading program. Miller explained this would be a shift in how summer school is handled, noting that currently summer school focuses on teaching with staff not concerned about testing and measuring learning. An intensive reading program would require the person teaching it to track student progress.
Medford currently does not offer that kind of program and under the law would have until summer 2026 to implement one. District administrator Laura Lundy suggested implementing a pilot program this summer offering it to parents as voluntary and seeing how many sign up.
Traditionally, when Medford school district has considered holding students back, it has been looked at when students are transitioning from elementary to middle school, or from middle school to high school. Often the decision, which involves parent involvement, is made based on the maturity of the student and is tied to their age compared to their peers.
The policy changes specifically will bring academic reading proficiency into the decision making process. The policy review regarding holding students back for reading proficiency has been in the works for the past few months and Miller suggested getting approved now ahead of the July 1 deadline rather than waiting until the school district’s contract with the policy company Neola begins July 1. It was noted the policy can be compared with the one from Neola in the future and changes made if additional legal language is needed.
Policy committee chair Jodi Nuernberger noted that the work already done would go into the procedure portion so the work done by staff would not be wasted.
While the policy changes addressed the requirements of the state law for reading, committee members also made it flexible enough for parents and staff to use to consider getting additional remediation services or holding students back at other grade levels due to lack of academic success.
In other business committee members:
• Took no action on changing the districts Title IX policy dealing with nondiscrimination. With the change in presidential administration, the directive was for the Title IX policies to revert to updates made in 2020. Medford had previously been working off language in a 2016 policy before adopting new language earlier this school year. The committee will wait to see what the lawyer-reviewed language is in the model policy from Neola before making changes.
• Approved moving forward with the new student drug testing policy that deals with rapid result testing. The district used the testing process for the first time this past month and it was reported that things went smoothly with no issues. The concern with the rapid response is that a non-negative response could be a false positive until confirmed after ensuring students aren’t on prescription medication that could show as a false positive. The district will currently allow students to practice and perform while the non-negative response is being reviewed. All of the tests recently given were negative. It was noted that if it becomes an issue the board can revisit the policy at any time.
• Approved changes that set up a formal process to fill the unexpired term of board members who leave or are unable to complete the remainder of the their term. Under the policy, the district would solicit for those interested in being on the board and invite them to apply and may do an interview process before voting to select someone. If a decision is not made within 60 days, the board president would be able to appoint someone.
