Parents of elementary-grade students will see a new grading system when the Shawano School District sends home report cards later this month.
Officials announced this week that report cards for grades K-5 will be moving away from a plus/minus grading system in favor of a numerical system from 1 to 4. Also, report cards will provide more details on what students are doing well, as well as areas where they are not meeting standards.
Under the former system, a plus indicated a passing grade and a minus did not.
Kelley Swartz, the district’s curriculum, instruction and assessment director, said Friday that the old system did not provide parents with enough information.
“A minus could mean they have no idea, or it could mean they’re almost there (on the standards),” she said. “It wasn’t giving as much feedback as we could.”
With new state curriculum and academic standards taking effect for all grades, district officials decided now would be a good time to implement a new grading system.
“I think we heard enough feedback from teachers and parents … that they were wanting more information,” Swartz said. “The other thing was, with the new standards, we needed to make some changes and updates, as well. A revision was needed anyway, and we felt giving more information than that plus or minus, it was a good thing.”
Students will receive grades for academic subjects and behavior. The report cards will show if students are behaving in class or if they are hindering their own learning and the learning of others.
On the numerical grading system, a 3 indicates that students are learning at the grade level, equivalent to an A. Swartz noted that parents should not be concerned if their children do not have 4s across the board.
“A 4 means they are exceeding the grade-level standards and can do that independently and consistently. A 3 is they are meeting the grade-level standards, and that’s great,” Swartz said.
The old report cards provided one comment box for teachers to provide feedback. The new cards will allow teachers to give detailed information on each subject.
The report cards will be distributed at the end of each semester — January and June. Fall parent-teacher conferences will provide parents with a progress report on how children are doing, Swartz said.
“We don’t have a fall report card, but what we do is provide a checklist explaining that this is what we’re seeing so far,” she said.
District officials will be providing parents with full details on the new report cards throughout January. More information on grading will be presented later this month at www.shawanoschools.com.
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