School Board To Vote On New Progress Report Format

By Tanjua Damon

Parents with children in elementary school could be seeing a newly designed progress report that looks at the individual student’s achievements to set educational standards, if the school board approves the measure next week.

The committee consisting of teachers, administrators, and parents has been researching and creating a new report card for the last three years. The new progress report will show parents what standards are expected from their children in each subject area.

“With the implementation of our standard based curriculum, our teachers asked for a report card that better fit with that,” said Judy Pesce, committee member and lead teacher at Hawley School. “The intent of the progress report is for the students, the parents, and the educators to have a clear picture of how the students learn.”

The new progress report, if approved by the Board of Education at its business meeting June 12, would be implemented in November. Parents would receive two conferences a year, in November and March. Then in January and June students would be sent home without a conference, but with written comments from the teacher.

“This really provides an education for the individual in the classroom,” said Gael Lynch, committee member and second grade teacher at Sandy Hook School. “There will be benchmarks at each of the grade levels to match all of the standards.”

The proposed progress reports list specific skills that students are expected to achieve. For example, third graders in reading will be graded on reading for information and understanding, taking a critical stance, reading strategically, and reading to make personal connections. Teachers will mark students by achievement, effort, and standard by exceeding standard or expectation, meeting standards or expectations, progressing toward standards, or experiencing difficulties.

“Basically what we hope in the end line is that parents will know where their child is learning,” Ms Lynch said, “and that parents will become involved with that learning.”

Parent Jill Beaudry also was on the committee and believes the proposed progress report will allow parents to see where their child is educationally and bring a universal grading system to all the elementary schools.

“If there was a problem you could address it in a shorter period of time. There’s no change for the students. They are being graded on the standards. The difference is how we communicate with parents,” Ms Beaudry said. “We want parents to be on the same level as students are. This is something there shouldn’t be differences on. Everyone should be on the same page.”

Parents will also review the progress report before the scheduled conference with the teacher, Ms Beaudry said. With the proposed report, students will be evaluated against the standards and graded individually.

Assistant Superintendent of Schools Robert Kuklis told the school board that a lot of hard work and long hours have been put in to coming up with the new progress report by parents, teachers, and administrators. The proposed report now reflects grading by the standards that were set up in the mid-1990s.

“Curriculum instruction assessment and reporting student progress should be in alignment,” Dr Kuklis said. “This is both individual and systemic. If we believe all children can and will learn well then you cannot be looking at a bell curve. I think this product is a manifestation of a lot of hard work by a lot of people.”

Superintendent of Schools John Reed believes the progress report will evaluate students on standards and individually, but also realizes that facing change can be a challenge.

“No matter how well we try this, change is not something everyone deals well with,” Dr Reed said. “We’re trying to let the students’ performance speak to itself.”

If the school board passes the measure June 12, the progress report will be used for the upcoming school year. At the end of the year, parents will be asked if they know more about their child with this new progress report.