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About 3,000 Indiana students are repeating third grade this school year for not meeting the state鈥檚 reading proficiency standards.

by the Indiana Department of Education showed 3.6% of the 84,000 children who took the statewide IREAD exam were retained in third grade under the first enforcement of a .

Those 3,040 retained students are more than seven times the 412 children held back in third grade two years ago.

Education Secretary Katie Jenner credited improved performance by students in the IREAD exam given last school year with the retention figure being lower than anticipated when the literacy requirement was being debated.

鈥淭he numbers that were being thrown out is that it would be 7,000 to 10,000 that this law would trigger retention,鈥� Jenner told State Board of Education members. 鈥淏ut, in fact, a huge shout out to our teachers and our people, we have thousands of kids who are now readers.鈥�

Education officials announced in August that 鈥� about 73,500 out of more than 84,000 students statewide 鈥� demonstrated proficient reading skills in 2024-25. They hailed the nearly five percentage point improvement from the previous school year as the largest year-to-year jump since the state began IREAD testing in 2013.

That left about 10,600 children who didn鈥檛 meet the standard, with almost 7,000 being given 鈥済ood cause exemptions鈥� to avoid retention. Nearly 75% of those given exemptions were special education students and about 24% are English learners with less than two years of specific literacy services.

Anna Shults, the Department of Education鈥檚 chief academic officer, said the new retention requirement was having its intended effect.

鈥淲e are now ensuring that students that are promoted on to grade four are doing so with an ability to read and show mastery of key foundational reading skills,鈥� Shults told the State Board of Education.

The Department of Education will have an online dashboard providing breakdowns of the Indiana Reading Evaluation and Determination assessment, or IREAD, by school district and individual schools, including charter schools and nonpublic schools.

Officials noted about 670 children who didn鈥檛 meet the literacy standards were not enrolled in Indiana schools this year, saying they likely moved out of state or were being homeschooled.

Jenner said a determination would need to be made about those students if they returned to Indiana schools.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 a question that we鈥檒l need to sort through, because some may move back into Indiana, or if they left for homeschool may come back in,鈥� Jenner said. 鈥淏ecause we鈥檙e looking at every unique student, I think we鈥檒l try to figure out exactly where they are.鈥�

According to 2023 data, 13,840 third-graders did not pass I-READ-3. Of those, 5,503 received an exemption and 8,337 did not. Of those without an exemption, 95% moved onto 4th grade while only 412 were retained.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: [email protected].

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