Director of Federal Programs Darrell Ryan told trustees that 280 elementary and junior high students were forced to attend summer school this year because of inadequate performance in the classroom or on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test.

Of that number, 55 students so far were informed that their summer school performance was inadequate to warrant promotion to the next grade. That number will likely increase after the district grade placement committee completes its work in the next few days.

“The ones who were retained either didn't take the TAKS or didn't even take it,” Ryan said. “Several didn't even show up for the test.”

Ryan said the overall numbers of retained students was slightly higher than last year, but would have been more in line with previous years if not for plain apathy in some cases.

“To be perfectly honest, if all the kids who went to summer school had ended up taking the tests, the numbers would probably be very close to last year,” he said.

Ryan said students attend summer classes because of inadequate performance in either the classroom or on the TAKS test. Students who show improvement are usually passed to the next grade level.

“If they take the TAKS and fail (during summer school), they still have the choice of meeting with the placement  committee,” Ryan said. “The committee can pass them on to the next grade if members feel the student can handle the work.”

There's not many options for dealing with apathy, but Ryan said the district has some options in hopes of reducing the number of retained students.

“We're hoping that bringing our curriculum more in line with state standards will help reduce those numbers,” Ryan said. “And we need to show those students the relevance of these courses. Many of them don't see it and subsequently don't care. But most of the retained students did care, and they came very, very close to passing.”

Also Thursday, trustees heard a “good news, bad news” report on the student laptop program instituted this past school year.

Technology Director Corey Wood said that slightly more than 600 of the 1,100 computers distributed to high school students and staff sustained some sort of damage this past year.

The good news is that most of that damage was not the students' fault.

Wood said that defects in the computer casing accounted for all but 57 of the damaged laptops. In those instances, Apple Computers repaired the computers for free. The other repair bills were covered by insurance on the laptops.