Roughly 6% of Jacksonville-North Pulaski third graders to be held back for reading performance

Among third graders in the Jacksonville-North Pulaski School District who did not pass a year-end literacy test, almost three-quarters will be promoted to fourth grade anyway due to exemptions.

Of the 334 third graders in the Jacksonville-North Pulaski district who took the end-of-year Arkansas Teaching, Learning & Assessment System test in the 2025-26 school year, 131 students, or more than 39%, scored a Level 1 on the reading portion on their first try, according to district spokeswoman Cheesa Williams. Level 1 is the lowest score on the ATLAS test.

Out of those 131 students who scored a Level 1, just 21 will be held back in the 2026-27 school year, Williams said.

The 21 third graders who will be held back represent roughly 6% of the third graders in the Jacksonville-North Pulaski district in 2025-26. Williams said that in the 2024-25 school year, three third graders were held back for academic reasons.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ LEARNS Act of 2023 requires third graders in public schools to score a Level 2 or higher on the ATLAS test in order to be promoted to fourth grade, beginning in 2025-26.

Districts were allowed to hold retests from May 18 to June 30, giving students a chance to improve their scores. Sixty-four Jacksonville-North Pulaski third graders retested, according to Williams, and 14 improved to a Level 2 or higher.

Arkansas school districts have the power to grant “good-cause exemptions” to third-grade students who fail to pass the test. Exemptions can be granted to students who were previously retained, students with certain disabilities and some English language learners.

Districts can also grant exemptions for students who previously performed consistently at grade level and students with “necessary, justifiable” exemptions that include experiencing a traumatic event impacting exam performance.

In total, 96 Jacksonville-North Pulaski third graders received a good-cause exemption, representing 73% of those who scored Level 1 on their first try.

Numbers from other Arkansas school districts reflect a similar trend, with large numbers of third graders being promoted despite failing to read at grade level on the ATLAS test.

In the Little Rock School District, roughly 400 of the district’s more than 1,400 third graders scored a Level 1 on their first try, of which roughly 380 received good-cause exemptions. In the Springdale School District, 403 of the district’s more than 1,500 third graders scored a Level 1, of which 390 received exemptions.

In the North Little Rock School District, roughly 110 of the 202 students who scored a Level 1 on their first try received exemptions, spokesman Dustin Barnes said previously. The district had roughly 570 third graders in 2025-26, according to Arkansas Department of Education enrollment data.

In the Pulaski County Special School District, Sonya Whitfield, deputy superintendent of learning services, said at a June board meeting that “a little over half” of the roughly 200 third graders who scored a Level 1 qualified for an exemption.

Research on retaining students in third grade has yielded mixed conclusions. Some studies have found that retention can result in short-term academic improvements.

A 2021 analysis by The Education Trust found that retention hurts students in the long run unless paired with intensive academic support, and in a recent survey of teachers conducted by the Fordham Institute, more than half said retention policies “don’t have much impact because everyone knows most students won’t really be retained.”