KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Parents across East Tennessee are facing a new reality as the state enters the second year of its third-grade retention law — whether to disrupt vacation plans and forego summer getaways for summer school.
Students who are not at least proficient in the English Language Arts portion of their Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program exam face needing to repeat the third grade. To avoid being held back, they can go through TN ALL Corps. tutoring during the fourth grade, retake the exam and appeal to the Tennessee Department of Education.
To avoid being held back, a Knoxville tutor said more families are enrolling their children in tutoring sessions.
"We try to tell kids, 'It's one day.' It doesn't represent everything they know and everything they can do," said Kala Downey, owner and educational consultant at Tutor Doctor in Knoxville. "Reactive parents are the ones who come to us. And, they say, 'We had no idea how far behind they were, we desperately need help.'"
She said last summer, her company scheduled 650 hours of tutoring for 25 families. She said most of those calls came from parents trying to keep their kids out of summer school.
This year, she said she expects the company to schedule 750 hours of tutoring for 32 families.
"This year, we are absolutely focusing in on our elementary school families. Like,' Hey, how are you guys doing?'" she said.
She also said she expects the age of her clients to change this summer. Last summer, she said she mostly tutored students from 7 years old to 12 years old. This year, she said she expects to focus on helping 9-year-old students to 15-year-old students.
"Making sure that we don't neglect it after that, because we still have older students who are experiencing the same struggles," she said.
She said two of the biggest learning gaps among students are their writing skills and their reading comprehension. She said parents should make an effort to read with their children, regardless of the format or material. It doesn't matter if it's a comic book or a novel — she said the goal is to inspire children to read.
"They can read four-syllable words, but they don't really understand what they're reading about," Downey said.