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JAMES THORNERThird-graders from 36 schools have failed the FCAT reading section. It's uncertain if they will proceed to fourth grade.
LAND O'LAKES - Up to 1,003 Pasco County third-graders - about one in four - might be required to repeat third grade next year.
FCAT reading scores released Friday showed that 25 percent of Pasco's 4,012 third graders have scored so low that advancement to fourth grade is doubtful.
Although school district officials insist the number of kids who will actually fail third grade will be lower - they'll remove two groups of kids, Spanish-speaking and mentally disabled, from the equation - the numbers still stagger.
"It's significant. There's no doubt about it," said Susan Rine, Pasco's administrative assistant for elementary schools.
For comparison's sake, in 2002 Pasco held back only 61 third-graders, or 1.5 percent. As late as Thursday, Sandy Ramos, the county's assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, predicted an FCAT failure rate of 18 percent.
Vowing to end social promotion of poor-reading elementary schoolers, Gov. Jeb Bush has drawn his line in the sand at third grade.
Kids scoring a 1 out of a possible 5 on the reading test are supposed to stay back another year. Scores ranging from 2 to 5 are considered passing.
Here's the logic: After third grade, kids must "read to learn rather than learn to read." In other words, they'll have to absorb more complicated written texts in subjects such as science and history. Without the ability to read they're academically stranded.
Another critical set of scores is due to arrive Monday. Nine percent of Pasco high school seniors - about 277 of 3,041 students - still have to pass the FCAT to graduate.
Failure to pass FCAT means seniors are eligible for a "certificate of completion" but not a standard diploma that paves the way for admission to college and the military.
As for third-graders, the FCAT reading failure rate varied widely by school: 34 elementary schools and two charter schools serving elementary kids.
The highest percentage of failures were in schools with the poorest kids, as measured by the percentage eligible for free and reduced lunches.
Forty-one percent of third-graders at Cox Elementary in Dade City failed. An equal percentage failed at Lacoochee and Moon Lake elementaries. Chasco Elementary's failure rate is 40 percent.
Most of the highest achieving elementaries were clustered in the southern tier of Pasco, growing suburbs attracting higher income families.
According to FCAT, the top reading schools include Trinity (9 percent failed), Sand Pine (10 percent), Anclote (11 percent) and Sanders (12 percent).
For most parents of failing students, FCAT results should not come as a surprise.
Struggling readers received a standardized letter in March from superintendent John Long warning of possible "retention," the word the school district uses for failing a grade.
Lake Myrtle Elementary is among the schools that went further. It sent out 26 letters to parents of third-graders who could fail the FCAT.
The school's failure rate amounted to 22 percent, but learning disabled kids are bused to Lake Myrtle, so the percentage of kids held back should be lower.
"We tried to forecast the students who may not do well," principal John Abernathy said. "There's been at least three different times parents have been notified."
Letters confirming that a student failed should go out early next week to the families of most Pasco third-graders.
On Friday, Rine, the district's head of elementary education, tried to look at the bright side of the scores.
She pointed out that in 2002, 29 percent of Pasco third-graders failed, though a low score last year didn't mean flunking third grade.
And there's still time for some students, albeit a minority, to prove to the state they can read well enough for fourth grade.
A summer reading program runs from June 9 to June 20. At the end of the program, kids can take another standardized test. Officials hope the program will help kids "on the verge of scoring higher" reach fourth grade.
"But some of these kids have been struggling for years I'm not sure 10 days is going to be any magic for them," Ramos, the assistant superintendent, said.
Another option is for teachers to compile a portfolio of a child's previous work to prove he can read better than FCAT suggests. Parents of low-scoring students are asked to call the school principal.
Children raised in Spanish language households are more apt to be exempted from repeating third grade, as are slow-learning students who have already been held back in the lower grades.
"We will start with those 1,003 kids who failed and will begin whittling away that number," Rine said.
But won't there be a big squeeze when rising second-graders arrive to find their chairs filled by repeat third-graders?
One thousand flunking third-graders averages out to about 27 kids for each of Pasco's 36 elementary and charter schools that took the FCAT.
The school district urges calm. Pasco's continuous progress system - sometimes known as open classrooms - blends several grades in one "house."
So even if a kid is labeled a repeat third-grader, he can still interact with many of his fourth-grade friends within the "house" in subjects other than reading.
"You don't have to be separated from your peer group," Ramos said. "Teachers are teaching more than one grade level already."
Plus, the stigma of repeating a grade doesn't have to endure. If students' reading improves part-way through the next academic year, the school district will try to promote them to fourth grade, Ramos said.
Though compelled by the state to hold kids back, some Pasco administrators have criticized the reliance on the FCAT.
Kids who fail more than one grade are often physically and emotionally more advanced than the kids seated around them. Odds are, a growing sense of inferiority leads them to drop out of school in their teens.
"You don't have too many 19-year-old graduating seniors," Ramos said.
- James Thorner can be reached at (813) 909-4613 or toll-free 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4613. His e-mail address is thorner@sptimes.com