Dear Parents and Guardians:
Today, we would like to inform you of important education option for your family if you believe your student may have experienced significant academic losses during the 2020-2021 school year.
This summer, the 87th Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill (SB) 1697, which allows parents and guardians to elect for a student to repeat a grade or retake a high school course.
This gives parents or guardians the right to opt for their child to:
- repeat pre-kindergarten or enroll in pre-kindergarten if the child was eligible to enroll in pre-kindergarten in the previous school year and has not yet enrolled in kindergarten;
- repeat kindergarten; or enroll in kindergarten if the child would have enrolled in kindergarten in the previous school year and has not yet enrolled in first grade; and
- for grades one through three, repeat the grade the student was enrolled in during the previous school year.
For the 2021-2022 school year only, parents or guardians have the right to opt for their child:
- for grades four through eight, repeat the grade the student was enrolled in during the 2020-2021 school year; and
- for courses taken for high school credit, repeat any course in which the student was enrolled during the 2020-2021 school year.
When determining whether these options may be right for your student, here are some things which may be helpful to consider:
- For children in grades 1-8, repeating may be right for your child if he/she struggled learning while remaining virtual most of the year.
- For students who took high school courses, repeating one or more courses may be right for your child if he/she struggled in a foundational course (e.g. Algebra I or computer science) and is worried about being successful in higher-level courses.
- If a high school student received a passing grade for the course they are requesting to repeat, they will keep their original grade on their transcript.
- For children interested in high school interscholastic competition, parents and guardians should review eligibility rulesbased on student age.
According to the new law, parents or guardians are required to notify the district in writing (letter or email to school principal) if they elect for their child to retake a grade level or course.
By law, if a district disagrees, the district must convene a retention committee and meet with the parent or guardian to discuss the proposed retention.
After the parent/ guardian has participated in the retention committee meeting, the parent or guardian will decide if the student will be retained.
For more information or to request retention for your student, please contact your campus administration.
Thank you.
- Harmony Public Schools
Additional information is available at: https://tea.texas.gov/repeatgrade and https://tea.texas.gov/restartkinder