Friday, October 7, 2011

Message from Asst. Superintendent - Patty de Garavilla

Elementary Standards-Based Report Cards
Parent Informational Update #1

This year, Reading Public Schools is implementing the new Massachusetts State Curriculum Frameworks for both English/Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics for PreK-12. These new standards include the Common Core State Standards which has been adopted by most states across the United States. Each grade level and subject area has specific standards for students to master by the end of the school year. Our teachers will focus on these as we support the goal of the Common Core which is to prepare students for college and career.
This year you will notice a new system of assessment for our K-5 students that is correlated to the new standards and expectations for mastery. Teachers will now report out student progress using the indictors of” Exceeds the Standard”,” Meets the Standard”, Progressing Toward the Standard”, and Beginning to Develop the Standard”. This system will be used with classroom assessments. You will no longer see scores reported out with letter grades or as percentages.
This will also be true of the new standards-based report card which will be introduced this year in grades K-5. This system will provide you with much greater detail on what your child is learning and his/her progress towards mastery. Please watch for more information on our standards-based grading and report cards over the next few weeks. We hope that this information will contribute to a smooth transition from the former report cards to the new.

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