Abstract: In many schools across the nation, student grade retention continues to be a common practice. Retention is usually the consequence administered to students who do not meet grade level requirements for promotion. Retaining students another year to repeat the same grade, in order to increase academic achievement or promote social growth not acquired the previous year, may appear to be logical and beneficial for students. However, over the past few decades, considerable research has been done that questions such assumptions. The purpose of this study is to explore African American parent perspectives regarding student grade retention. The inquiry is guided questions relating to (a) student retention and student achievement; (b) student retention and student self concept; (c) student retention and school dropout; and (d) alternatives to retention. Although substantial research has been conducted on student retention, little research has viewed it from the parents' perspective. Hence, exploration into parent perspectives regarding student retention emerged as a topic of inquiry. In this study, qualitative methods were utilized. Within qualitative research, interviewing has been utilized to yield more in-depth accounts from the participants. Thus, for this study, interviewing was the primary method by which data were collected. In this study, the perspectives of sixteen African American parents whose children experienced retention in K5 thru 9th grade were gathered using in-depth interviewing and their stories presented. In this study, many parents perceived grade retention as beneficial for their child; while several parents perceived that it did not make a difference in their child's academic performance. Parent participants expressed many reasons for their children's retention, including their own lack of involvement, but their children's lack of effort and failure to complete assigned tasks was the most significant factor. Despite prior findings regarding grade retention and school dropout, only two participants expressed school dropout as a possibility for their children. In this study, there was no new insight on whether retention significantly helps or hurts the child retained. What the interviews did reveal, however, was a consistent lack of school-parent communication and lack of available resources to help the child. Furthermore, suggestions to address the issue of grade retention are presented. These parent perspectives will assist educators to make more informed and educationally sound decisions that benefit students.