Social promotion is Anchorage’s official policy

 ‘ALL CHILDREN ARE ABOVE AVERAGE’ IS UP FOR DISCUSSION

For 20 years, the Anchorage School District has had a policy of automatic promotion from grade to grade.

Last year, among the 3,500 third graders, only five were held back from going on to fourth grade. The same was true for second-graders and fifth-graders. After years of being advanced automatically, many students don’t have the basic skills they need for high school.

But social promotion is the Anchorage School District official policy, which has a written preference that students should be moved to the next grade with their classmates.

Board member Dave Donley has suggested a policy change in Memorandum 117: Instead of automatic promotion, educators should decide what is in the best interest of each individual child, how they are in their proficiency, special needs they may have, and parents should certainly have a say.

In other words, the policy should return the decision to a case-by-case basis, with parental input.

[Read the board document here]

This policy change will be on tonight’s school board agenda for discussion..

School board meetings are available live on the municipality’s cable channel 9 and streamed on ASD’s YouTube channel. Board meetings will also be available 48 hours after the meeting’s conclusion in Board Docs.

School Board meetings are held at the ASD Education Center, 5530 E Northern Lights Blvd. The meeting starts at 7 pm.