I hope you're all enjoying this beautiful, snowy Martin Luther King Day with your children! As you know, we're approaching the half way point of the school year this week, and with that milestone comes the first report card of the year. We will be mailing out your child's report card on Friday, so please be looking for it in your mailboxes Saturday or early next week.
Your child's report card will have a lot of information on it that may not be familiar to you, and I’d like to share a few thoughts on the developmental scales we’re using to describe your child’s progress. It’s important that we not look at the numbers on the report card as the traditional final grades (A, B, C, etc.) that most of us are used to -- the following scale is what you'll see when you receive the report card next week:
1 - Beginning to show growth toward grade level expectations
2 - Making progress toward grade level expectations
3 - Meets grade level expectations
4 - Exceeds grade level expectations
What you see here is a developmental scale based on growth and progress. The numbers themselves should not be looked at as final grades; in other words, a “1” should not be considered an “F”, nor should a “4” be considered an “A”. The numbers simply indicate how your student is progressing at the half way point of this school year.
Meeting grade level expectations, a “3”, is the targeted benchmark for our students, but there will be numerous situations where a majority of our students aren't quite there yet given that we're only half way through the year. It’s important to know, however, that areas in which a child is falling short of that expectation (a “1” or “2”) still indicate progress or growth. Something else important to consider is that this first report card should be compared to the growth and progress indicated on the report card you receive at the end of the year in June. In other words, making progress toward grade level expectations in January will hopefully lead to meeting grade level expectations in June!
I hope this information is helpful to you, and many of you will have some questions when you first take a look at the report card next week. Your child's teacher and I welcome these questions! I'd also like to remind you all that our third MPS Community Forum on "The Future of School" is next Wednesday evening, January 27 from 6:00 to 8:00 in the MHS library. Proficiency based learning (and its connection to our standards based report cards) will be the evening's theme, and we will have pizza provided for all who attend beginning at 5:30. We really hope to see you there!
Again, enjoy this snowy day with your family, and have a great rest of the week!
