August 5  is the last day of summer school classes for elementary and middle school students  before they take state math exams on August 9 and  English exams the following day, to determine whether they will be promoted to the next grade.

Some 1800 students are getting a reprieve from the last week of classes and exams.   Letters were sent out this week to students who were assigned to summer school, but ended up scoring high enough on the standardized tests last spring, informing them that they didn't have to go to summer school after all.  But, an additional 8500 are finding out that they failed to score at least a Level 2 on the exams and should have gone to summer school.   Check out Gothamschools for a rundown on how that happened.

Since it's too late for the 8500 students to sign on to summer school, Chancellor Klein announced in a letter to parents about test results released this week, that the affected students will be getting "additional support" during the coming school year rather than being forced to repeat a grade. The Chancellor's Regulation on promotion standards spells out the kind of support that at-risk students should be getting.

The chancellor's letter also lets parents know how to access their children's scores online through the ARIS system. Scores will be posted beginning on August 16.