Published: Wed, May. 30, 2007 12:00AM

Modified Wed, May. 30, 2007 05:10AM

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In Durham, 7 percent of kindergartners failed in the 2002-03 school year, according to district data. A year later, 6.5 percent failed.

Alarmed, school leaders hauled in elementary school principals and showed them research that retentions don't improve academic achievement, Rhodes said.

Now, kindergarten retentions hover just over 2 percent. Still, the years when elementary principals were failing many more has created a middle-school bulge.

The solution at Githens

Kitty Brawley has worked with overage students for the past two years at Githens Middle School, where more than 200 students are at least one year older than their peers in the same grade, according to school and district-wide data.

"We have a problem," Brawley said. "And we're going to take care of it rather than just pass it on."

Each year, Brawley rounds up the oldest eighth-grade students and tells them and their parents she's pushing them out of the nest -- provided they agreed to flap their wings.

With emphatic commitment from students and their parents, Brawley readies the eighth-graders for high school, including teaching appropriate behavior and study habits. Fifteen students were moved to ninth grade halfway through the year, she said.

This year, for the first time, Brawley is doing the same with seventh-graders who really should be in eighth grade.

One recent morning, while talking about the students' achievements, Brawley had to pause and wipe the tears glistening in her eyes.

The program has given student Vicky Hernandez redemption. The quiet 14-year-old said she failed fourth grade because she was a foster child at the time, and was being pulled out of class to deal with her life outside of school, she said.

"I thought I was dumb," Vicky said softly. Now she realizes her capabilities.

"I feel really lucky," she said. "I'm happy that I was picked out of all those students to be moved up."

Test scores a concern

Not everyone favors putting these students on the fast track.

Laine Hindley, the principal intern at Githens, said some teachers don't want students who were supposed to fail moved into their classes. They worry it might lower test scores.

"You have to ask, are we doing what's best for our test scores, or are we going to do what's best for our kids," Hindley said. "Now, the teachers are sort of warming up to it."

'We can't mess up'

At Brogden Middle School in Durham, almost a quarter of the students were at least one year older than their peers when they entered school in August, according to age and enrollment data provided by the district. Forty students, or about 4.8 percent, are two years older or more.

More than 30 percent of students at Chewning, Neal and Lowe's Grove middle schools also are technically overage. Instead of promoting students mid-year, the programs at Chewning and Lowe's Grove move students up after nine weeks, so they don't miss so much instruction. They are constantly tracked.

"There are some that can pull it together just long enough to show that they can move up, and then they sort of lose focus," said Lowe's Grove Interim Principal Eric Johnson.

Principals and teachers know they can pour extra time, money and attention into some students and still not be successful.

Tevin Armstrong, 15, a student at Durham's Jordan High School knows it, too, he said. The round-faced, talkative teen was one of Brawley's students at Githens last fall, where he was a year behind. This spring he has managed to earn A and B grades in his first semester at Jordan High School.

Despite his own successes, Tevin has watched another boy from Githens, who moved up with him, fail. That student will have to repeat ninth grade.

"Every time I think about not doing my homework, I think about what Ms. Brawley said," Tevin said. "We can't mess up at all, or we'll be back where we started."