The first year that I filed the bill.

Originally, I had that component in the legislation to retain a student in third grade who had not met that that level.

It was not politically popular.

We took that out.

I am aware of the study.

It's a Fordham Institute study that came out a few years ago, but since they initially made that study, they have came out with a disclaimer, and I just happened to have copied that here because I thought it might come up and it said they update it and it said based on their demographic study, it shows that retaining students was in fact not a major contributor.

The Mississippi's increase in reading improvement and as I look at it and I think it's a fair question I asked and I certainly like to get the input here.

If you do everything, it's part of the bill that's in the bill, you're really not going to have you should not have that many students who are in a situation where they would have to retain have to be retained in next year.

So I'll ask the question for those students who just haven't got it, very small percent, are they better off to be held back another year to give them an opportunity to get it or I mean, I know there's differences of opinions on that.

Mississippi does retain most of the states in the South that have passed legislation have the third grade retention model in that.

So this going to throw that out for discussion to get your input?

I think one thing that I would say is that waiting until grade three is too late.

So that's the beautiful thing about the legislation.

It's pointing toward early identification and prevention, and that should be happening.

Kindergarten in grade one, grade two.

And what the bill also does, you know, if you are retaining a student at grade three, well, the intent there is that they will have more intensive supports in practice.

Well, that's that's the point of the intervention.

And that that the enrichment that's a part of the read to succeed act.

So we we believe and again time will tell that we will see improvement in student outcomes even without that third grade retention piece woven into the legislation.

I would also add to that if you do wait to that point a waiting to third grade, then research says that it would take a teacher to close those skill gaps.

90 minutes to 3 hours per day for a long period of time.

Our educators do not have that amount of time to spend one on one small group instruction.

And so early intervention with our early literacy assessments is absolutely key.

I know I keep referencing CREB, but we just got back from a conference and that's where legislators collaborate and we actually hear what's going on in other states when we talk about retention.

It's not the boogeyman that I think everybody made it out to be initially.

I think their results are showing that that retention is about 5%, something like that.

So it's not like a 30% or 40%.

It's the states that retain students is really about five 5%.

And.