Uphill And into The Wind: How Adults Who Repeated a Grade In K-12 Perceive the Impact of Retention

Beginning in early 2020, COVID-19 drove decisions to adopt learning platforms and strategies on a scale never before contemplated. Recent research suggests that, as classrooms have returned to face-to-face instruction, many students have experienced learning losses. Once again, grade retention has surfaced as offering lagging students a gift of time. This qualitative study relies on interviews with adults, ages 43-67, who were retained in grade as children. Using narrative inquiry (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Patton, 2015), we probed the perceptions of participants, seeking to understand the extent to which their experiences align with extant research. The study offers current education leaders and those who aspire to these leadership roles insights into the long-term impact of a decision to retain a student in grade.