What To Ask Before You Change Your Report Card

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aUAc-ZVeIg

Presented by Annie Stefano – Transcription Below

Introduction

Welcome to the “Illuminate Whiteboard Series.” My name is Annie Stefano, and I am a customer success manager for the Implementation team.

Today, we’re going to talk about some essential questions you wanna ask yourself before you change your report card. Believe it or not, this is key to have successful that is for your students and your parents.

What Is Your Grading Practice?

So number one, what is your grading practice really? Your grading practice could be one of the following. It could be a percentage-based, points-based, average [inaudible 00:00:36] of a grading practice. It could be a standards-based, looking at levels of mastery from 1 through 4 on a student’s growth in a particular area or skill. Or it can be a combination of the two, which we like to call a standards-referenced grading practice. All of those need to be chosen and cultivated so you have the report card to match the practice. If your teachers don’t know the grading practice that you’re doing in your organization, then it will be really hard for them to actually give an accurate picture of a student’s growth each reporting period.

Do You Have a Final Report Card Completed?

Number two, do you have a final report card completed? So the document itself is almost like working backwards in assessment design. Your end goal is in front of you. What are you reporting to the parents and to the students about their growth over a specific period of time? If the document’s not completed, then however you’re building your report card, it’s not going to be as successful as you would like. To know the end goal means you know how to support the grading practices and the tools in the classroom and teachers know what instructional practices and tools they need to use to track that information.

How Engaged Are Parents?

And number three, how is your parent engagement? If your parent engagement is a little low right now, then that’s something you want to tackle before report cards come back out. How do you make parents feel engaged, feel comfortable, be part of the school community, the classroom community, and build relationships with teachers, so that when parent teacher conferences come around, the report card conversation is not scary, they don’t run away, they don’t not make an appointment with the teacher, or come and try and learn how they can help their student, they actually want to come and learn how to help their child. So making sure to kind of use community events, back to school night, even parent portal, if you have one, to keep an open door policy on what’s happening with their child, their children, will all encourage a better understanding of that final report card each grading period.

Conclusion

So you wanna make sure to ask yourself these questions before you move forward in changing your report card. It will actually change a lot more than just the document.

Thanks for watching, and hope you have a great day, and we’ll see you at the next “Illuminate Whiteboard Series.”

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