Report cards, reporting, standards and success

Our teachers are busy preparing for our first ever report cards.  As part of our research in best practices and common practices, we requested sample report cards from other schools whom we admire: a public district language immersion school, a public district PYP school,  an independnt language immersion and PYP school, and a public charter language immersion and PYP school.  Each school indicated that they were planning a revision of their report cards and we will be interested to see how/what they update.  Our admin team reviewed the samples and we learned quite a bit about what other schools report to their parents, how often and how.  Every sample that we reviewed was a standards based report, many boxes with statements from the standard and a symbol indicating how the student was progressing in that standard.  None of the samples that we requested had any space for teachers to write a narrative about the child’s progress.   We were quite shocked that these early elementary reports were so impersonal and spent more time drafting our first report cards than we had anticipated.  We intended to send report cards out Monday, November 2nd, but will delay sending them home until Monday, November 9th.  Writing narratives for each student is a time-intensive process but one that we believe provides a more comprehensive understanding of who each child at each stage of the school year.  We are committed to including narrative reports for all students at every grade level in our schools.  Below is our reporting philosophy (which will be added to our website soon).  Let us know what you think of the philosophy now and again after you receive your child’s first narrative report.

Report Cards, Reporting, Standards and Success

At SLLIS we do not use overall letter grades or number grades in our elementary schools.  We report student learning with two specific tools throughout the school year: Narrative Progress Reports and Student Portfolios.

Narrative Progress Reports are snapshots of where your children are each quarter.   These reports are not cumulative and families will receive a unique one at the end of each quarter.  These reports are designed to answer three important questions for parents:
•    Do the teachers really know my child?
•    Do the teachers know what my child is mastering?
•    Do the teachers know where my child is struggling?

In a Narrative Progress Report teachers will provide the following information:
•    which units, short projects and long projects the class experienced
•    how your child approached the work
•    which types of/which questions they asked of the work
•    which discoveries they made that inspired further study
•    physical, intellectual and socio-emotional development

Those of you with older children may be very familiar with the Missouri Show Me Standards and Grade Level Expectations (GLEs).  The state of Missouri uses these standards and expectations to design the mandatory statewide standardized test– MAP.  Our teachers use these standards and expectations to plan the sequence of skills introduced in each subject area at each grade level.  If you have questions about how your child is progressing on any subject-specific skill, please ask your teacher and s/he will be able to explain when and how the skill is being introduced in the classroom and how your child is mastering it.  Each year SLLIS will distribute checklists of each set of GLEs for your reference.  Teachers will not produce a tally of each checklist for the progress report.

Narrative Progress Reports will be distributed November 9, 2009;  January 15, 2010 (at Family Conferences); March 26, 2010; June 22, 2010 (on last day of school).

Our Student Portfolios are designed to answer slightly different questions for parents:
•    What is my child producing?
•    Which elements of his work make my son proud?
•    How does my child synthesize complex ideas?
•    What does my daughter know about her own learning?

Student Portfolios will be built throughout the school year and will remain in the classrooms.  Students will learn to select pieces of their work that represent a variety of concepts, skills and understandings from each unit.  Students will learn to reflect on each piece in their portfolio and, with some assistance from their teachers, explain their selection of each piece in the portfolio.  Portfolio presentation days occur in the last six weeks of the school year as part of our culminating learning celebration.

Reporting student progress and success is a difficult task and one that we are committed to reviewing annually.  At the end of the school year we will convene a Progress Report Focus Group of teachers and parents to review how effective this reporting is for teachers, parents and ultimately students in understanding their own learning.