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A major topic this school year among local school officials and those who follow the school systems was the 3rd grade retention law passed by the Tennessee General Assembly.

The law states that students in 3rd grade “shall not” be promoted to 4th unless they receive a rating of “on track” or “mastered” on the English Language Arts portion of the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) test.

For students who fall short of the standards, there are a few ways to achieve promotion without retaking the same grade level. They are: if the student is an English language learner with less than two years of ELA instruction; the student has already been retained in K-3; the student is retested and scores proficient; the student attends a learning loss camp with a 90% attendance rate and demonstrates “adequate” growth on the test; or the student is assigned a tutor for the entire upcoming year.

The law went into effect in this school year and Athens City Schools officials expressed concern about the impact it may have on students as they continue to recover from COVID-19 shutdowns and the accompanying remote learning.

Assistant Director of Schools Melody Armstrong had previously noted that it was possible up to 75% of students across the state could end up being retained. That, however, won’t be the case for 3rd graders at ACS.

During the ACS Board workshop recently, Armstrong announced that 171 students, or 87%, “met (expectations), passed the retake, filed an appeal or were exempt” from the TCAP test.

Of that number, 25 students had to retake the test and 29 filed an appeal because “they were above the 40th percentile on the STAR reading test in the spring.” Officials expected those 29 to be passed to the 4th grade.

That leaves 23 students needing to either attend summer camp or engage in tutoring during their 4th grade year. Another three students must both attend camp and show adequate growth and then take part in tutoring next school year.

Armstrong said she wasn’t sure if retention after 4th grade would be in store for students who either opt to take or are required to take tutoring next year and then don’t meet or exceed expectations on the 4th grade TCAP test.

“It’s unclear on the 4th grade test if they have to score ‘met,’ that’s sort of hanging out there,” she said.

Now, Armstrong said there are two important dates coming up for notification of parents. She said by July 3 the system must “notify any families of final retention if they did not participate in intervention pathways.”

However, she added, “right now it looks like we do not have any (that will be retained).”

Then, by July 24, the three students who must attend camp and receive tutoring next year must be notified of whether or not they achieved adequate growth to be passed on.

Armstrong was then asked if students who were otherwise expected to move on to 4th grade fell into the 26 students who required intervention.

“I would say they were not surprised,” she said. “There might have been one.”

After the concerns expressed by system officials and school board members about the new law, Armstrong congratulated the 3rd grade teachers on what they accomplished with the students.

“I cannot say enough about our 3rd grade teachers,” she said. “They have double digit increase of 20 percentage points of students meeting or exceeding expectations. They’ve done a great job.”

Armstrong added that the teachers worked closely with parents to keep students on track this school year.

“We’ve sort of held their (parents’) hands and made sure they knew what was going on,” she said.

ACS Director of Schools Robert Greene added that the assistance from parents has been a great benefit in achieving this.

“We were really concerned that kids might not show up or parents wouldn’t take the effort,” he said. “They did a great job to get a lot of them contacted and showing up.”

Summer camp is ongoing now for ACS, with Armstrong noting it stretches from June 5 through June 29 on Mondays through Thursdays. Breakfast, lunch and snack are included by the school.

She said 333 total students have registered, 100 of them being 3rd graders.

The City of Etowah is planning its annual Independence Day festivities and fireworks show this year.

According to Etowah Chamber of Commerce President Frank Clark, the current plans for the 4th of July celebration in Etowah will start early that morning.

“We will start things off with our 5k run and the Boy Scout Pancake Breakfast. We will also have our beauty pageant from 10:30 a.m. until noon,” Clark said. “We are now accepting applications for the beauty pageant with the deadline being on July 1. Applications are available at the Etowah Community Center, Birds of a Feather in Athens, Choate Printing in Etowah and Southern Sweets Bakery in Etowah.”

More information concerning the pageant and other festivities during the day can be found on the Etowah 4th of July Facebook page.

Other events currently scheduled to take place that day are: cornhole tournament, live music throughout the day, a kids zone near the walking track, vendors, a patriotic program, the fireworks show scheduled for 9:45 p.m. and an encore musical performance after the fireworks show.

“Last year was a great year and we really enjoyed it, but I think this year will be wonderful as well,” Clark said. “This community has been making this happen for 40 years, so to have all of these people and sponsors for the event really is an amazing thing.”

Clark believes the event has continued to grow over the years in terms of visitors as well.

“We can’t even truly capture the amount of people who come to town for the event but we have people who park all the way down Mecca Pike and 18th Street, that number is honestly such a large number that we can’t even track it,” he stated. “It is incredible to see people want to come out and support this event and really make it into an old fashioned hometown 4th of July celebration. I think just the sense of nostalgia is what people love the most.”

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