A policy change up for approval by the Knox County Board of Education tonight would impose new restrictions on third-grade students before they could be promoted to fourth grade.

Under the policy, which would take effect next school year and is mandated by a new state law, any third-grade students who do not score as proficient on state reading tests would be faced with either being held back, attending a mandatory six-week summer school session, or being assigned a tutor throughout their fourth-grade year.

The data is mixed on the long-term effects of students repeating a grade.

Since only about 40 percent of Knox County third-graders typically score as either “mastered” or “on track” in the English/language arts exam, the policy change would affect the other 60 percent.

Third-grade reading proficiency is a nationally established benchmark, with studies showing that students who are not reading at grade level by that point tend to struggle through the rest of their academic careers.

Jon Rysewyk, chief academic officer for Knox County Schools, said under the state’s previous education law, local districts were charged with identifying and providing additional help to third-graders struggling with reading.

“But under the new law, that wouldn't be enough,” Rysewyk said. “This is laid out very clearly what scores they have to make on proficiency for the third grade. So this one has probably a little more teeth in it, and currently not a lot of local control over that. It’s set by the state Legislature.”

Currently, he said, Knox County holds back very few third-grade students. And even under the new policy, he said the district would encourage students to pursue one of the other options the law allows — summer school, fourth-grade tutoring, or retaking the state test — before repeating a grade.

However, if students who don’t repeat the grade continue to struggle on their fourth-grade tests, they could still face being held back at that point. (The law allows students to be held back only once because of reading scores.)

“Our goal would be to try to encourage the students to attend the summer bridge program,” Rysewyk said. “That would be those six extra weeks to try to catch them up to proficiency.”

Much about the logistics of the new law and policy have yet to be clarified. For one thing, students don’t take the statewide tests until April. That leaves just a month in the school year for local districts to receive scores and determine which students will require some form of remediation. The state has typically taken longer than that to distribute results.

“We’ve gotten it a lot of different times,” Rysewyk acknowledged. “The idea is that they will have those to us sooner.”

That could still leave many families facing uncertainty at the end of the third-grade year, waiting to find out if students will need to enroll in six weeks of summer classes. (Planning vacations could be tricky.)

But it is also possible that the Legislature will revisit the law in its upcoming session. School board member Susan Horn told her colleagues at their Dec. 1 work session that the Tennessee School Boards Association is proposing changes to it.

“They’re recommending that the General Assembly change that law so that it is more flexible for the district, if students are progressing and they are doing certain things,” Horn said.

The law is similar to one passed in Florida nearly 20 years ago. A study by a Harvard education professor found that students forced to repeat third grade by Florida’s law “experienced substantial short-term gains in both math and reading achievement. They were less likely to be retained in a later grade and better prepared when they entered high school.”

It also found no negative impact on eventual high school graduation rates for students who were held back.

A Rand Corp. analysis found that students retained in middle school had higher dropout rates than their peers, but the effect was much smaller for students kept back in earlier grades. It also found, “There was no evidence that retention improved high school persistence and attainment.”

The school board meets at 5 p.m. today in the Main Assembly Room of the City County Building.