When students are exempt from rule
If recent revisions to the third-grade reading guarantee had been in place in the 2010-11 school year, 17,079 Ohio third-graders could have been held back or placed on an intervention plan. However, the state will exempt students from the retention rule if they fall into one of these groups:
■ Limited-English-proficient students who have been enrolled in U.S. schools for less than two full school years and have had less than two years of instruction in an English-as-a-second-language program.
■ Special education students whose Individualized Education Plan specifically exempts them from retention under the third-grade guarantee.
■ Students who demonstrate reading competency on an alternative proficiency assessment approved by the state department of education.
■ Any student who has received intensive remediation for two years and was previously retained in kindergarten through Grade 3.
Students who do advance to fourth grade under one of these exceptions must continue to receive “intensive reading instruction in the fourth grade, which requires an altered instructional day to accommodate reading interventions, or whatever reading interventions are required” by an individualized plan.
Source: Ohio Department of Education
