Term: Retention Rates, Kindergarten to Grade 8

Glossary Definition

Last Updated: 2010-08-16

Definition:

Retention refers to students who were enrolled in the same grade for two consecutive years, and who did not have an aberrant pattern of promotion any other year (for example, retention one year and promotion of two grades the next year, or a progression backwards).

The retention rate from kindergarten to Grade 8 is the age- and sex-adjusted percentage of students retained at least once during their progress from Kindergarten to Grade 8, i.e., children that are not progressing through the school system as expected. This analysis includes children enrolled in Kindergarten to Grade 8 in academic years 2000 to 2005 (school years 2000/01 to 2005/06) with a follow–up period in academic year 2006 (school year 2006/07) for enrollments in academic year 2005 (school year 2005/06). The denominator for this analysis is the number of students that were in the school program in Grades K–8 at any point and were in the program for at least two years. Band schools were excluded in this analysis.

For more information, see section 16.1 Retention Rates from Kindergarten to Grade 8 in Martens et al. (2010).

NOTE: Retention is now referred to as Continuing Student.

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