EASTSIDE TO BOOST REMEDIAL CLASSES; POLICY DESIGNED TO AID FAILING KIDS.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer

Eastside Union School District students will have to attend remedial classes during school breaks if they fail to meet academic standards set under a new promotion and retention policy.

Students in second through fifth grades who score below 75 percent on district tests of ``foundational benchmarks'' will be deemed at risk of failure and be required to attend four-hour classes to work on problem areas.

``There was a policy before but not as strict as the new one,'' Superintendent Connie Webb said. ``This is now built off whether you pass benchmarks, not what grades are. If they can't meet the benchmarks, we now have mandatory intercession.''

Eastside adopted the promotion and retention policy last week in response to a new state law putting an end to social promotion.

While school districts already were required to have promotion and retention policies, the state law that took effect in January requires administrators to specifically address student advancement into grades 3-5, and into middle school and high school.

The Eastside district, with a total enrollment of about 2,350, last year held back 15 students - all kindergartners at Tierra Bonita School - mainly because they were not mature enough or ready to move on to the next grade, Webb said.

Under the district's previous policy, school officials looked at factors such as grades, effort and the student's maturity level, Webb said.

``We addressed students' deficiencies in their grade while they were going on through the school. There were not solid standards to give us guidance saying students must be at this level or they will be retained,'' Webb said.

The district will use tests that are generated through a computer program to test students against the district's benchmarks. Second- and third-graders will be tested in reading and language arts, and fourth- and fifth-graders will be tested in reading, writing and math, Webb said.

The reading test for second-graders would help determine their phonemic awareness, and whether they can identify compounds, contractions, synonyms and antonyms.

Third-graders in reading should be able to identify and use prefixes, suffixes and roots, read aloud with clarity and comprehension, and differentiate between fact and opinion.

In math, benchmarks for fourth-graders include identifying the place value of digits and within decimals and solving multistep word problems. Fifth-graders in the area of reading and language arts should be able to determine cause-and-effect relationships and make comparisons and contrasts.

The district is working toward adopting specific guidelines for eighth-graders. Webb said elementary school districts in the Antelope Valley are developing a ``common exit criteria'' for students moving on to high school.

At present, eighth-graders at Eastside must pass a proficiency test in language arts and math, Webb said.

The state law requires students be held back based on scores on the statewide Stanford 9 standardized test and minimum performance levels adopted by the state of Board of Education, or on grades and other indicators of academic achievement designated by the district.

The law also states that students will be held back unless their teacher determines that retention is not the appropriate intervention and includes recommendations to help them attain acceptable levels of academic achievement.

School district policies also should provide a plan for remedial instruction for students who are at risk of or recommended for retention.

``Social promotion refers to practices in which districts promote children to the next grade when those children have not mastered current grade level skills,'' a state Assembly committee report said.

The American Federation of Teachers surveyed student promotion policies from 85 districts around the country, including the 40 largest districts, the report said.

``The survey found that almost all districts had positions stating that retaining students should be the option of last resort, and half restricted the number of times a student can be retained. Most districts surveyed did not have agreed-upon standards defining what grade-level skills children should know,'' the report said.