Then you start mixing in the special needs students with the regular “low” classes, and into the remedial classes, and all of those behavior problems come out because they aren’t in the right environment and are not getting the support they need.

In recent times, the behavior problems tend to just be muted out of the Zoom call, so they become the problem of the parent instead of the teacher and the whole class. But that's just my perspective from an area where we are learning remotely, and it'll probably go back to what you described when they start doing in-person schooling again.

But I can understand the problem with retention vs. social promotion. Some kids may never catch-up with all the academic goals of their elementary school, but it seems as if they only can be held back a maximum of 2 years in my kid's school. But still, even with a 2 year difference, there was a boy in my daughter's 4th grade class last year who was about 12 years old (instead of the usual 10 years old) and he was bigger than the other kids and began aggressively following around the girls he was interested in and trying to touch them. That won't be a problem anymore now that they are learning at home, but in general I wouldn't want them to keep a kid like that in elementary school for too many more years, whether he learns to spell the three-letter-words he's working on or not.

I'm looking forwards to see how this Acellus system works for remote learning in 5th grade. I don't know where it will fall on the spectrum from fascinating to deathly-dull, but I like the idea that more of the learning will be self-paced for every student, and I hope she can at least get more science and coding out of it than they had been offering in-person.