Ask why the school is recommending that your child be retained. If your child has low grades or failures, and that is the basis of the recommendation for retention, ask why the grades are low. If assignments are missing, why? Your child might just need help with organization or attendance. Is the low overall grade due to low test scores, low homework grades, or low performance on daily work? If the test scores are low, your child might just need help with test taking skills and strategies, or might need help overcoming test anxiety. If the daily work grades are low, are they due to a lack of understanding of what to do or is it due to being easily distracted, working slowly and not finishing? Another year of the same grade will not solve those problems. Your child might need extra time for his work or strategies to work more efficiently, or a quieter atmosphere to work in. Ask how far behind your child is and how much intervention is needed for him to catch up. How long will it take for him to catch up? Can this be accomplished in a summer school session or with extra help, such as tutoring?
Ask what other interventions are available. All schools should offer a variety of interventions to their students in general education classes. Those might include routine classroom supports, and specific programs to support reading or math or other skills. Those programs should be in addition to classroom instruction. Your child should not be pulled out of classroom instruction in reading to go to a reading support program, for example. These levels of supports are required in the No Child Left Behind law. Retention might be the best choice for a child, but it should be chosen only after all other appropriate interventions have been tried.
Think long-term. According to the National Association of School Psychologists, research shows that initial gains in achievement tend to occur during the first year after a child is retained, but those gains tend to decline within two to three years after the retention. After a few years, the children who were retained usually are no further ahead than children with similar difficulties who were not retained. Look at your child's age. If she is retained, what age will she be in when she graduates? Children who are retained often are at a higher risk of dropping out of school and age is a huge factor. If a student is in the 12th grade when she turns 18, there is a good chance she will graduate. If she is in the 11th grade when she turns 18, there is a much greater chance she will not stick it out.