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New grading system appears to be working wellBy Barbara Brown At the beginning of the 2003-2004 school year, North Branch schools and every other district in the state had to be ready to start using a new grading system for kindergarten through fifth grade. Parents who received grade reports for the first trimester of the school year saw the system, based on numbered levels of competency and completion of specific standards set by the state. The changes to the elementary grading system are part of the new standards of education adopted by Minnesota Legislature for the new Minnesota Department of Education. The standards are more specific to what a child should be able to accomplish by the end of the year. Some of those specific standards for kindergartners include: identify uppercase and lowercase letters, use words to describe actions, correctly write numbers zero through nine, communicate needs and feelings, count forward to 31, count backward from 10 and recognize and describe repeating patterns, among others. While the former Profile of Learning dictated specific curriculum activities to teachers and required a lot of paperwork to be filed, legislators and administrators hope the new standards of education will not only make a teacherís job easier and more fun, but also encourage student improvement in core education areas. District Special Services Director Jan Ashlin said the feedback she has received from teachers has been positive. ìThe new standards are less complicated for the teachers to use,î she said. One especially helpful aspect of the new standards is that they only set out the goal for the studentís education, not necessarily how a teacher should get there. Students learn in different ways, Ashlin said. Some may master a skill through watching another perform the task and then mimicking, others may learn best by reading instructions, while still other student may learn best when they are orally told instructions. ìInstead of having the exact same activity or exercise for every student, the teachers can be more creative,î Ashlin said. ìThey can address each studentís learning needs in a way that is appropriate in order to teach the skill.î The new standards system runs from 5-1. Although many parents may see the numbered system simply as a new A-F system, Ashlin warned that the two systems are not interchangable. The old A-F system was rather vague when it came to delineating what each letter grade meant. ìThey were more subjective,î Ashlin said. ìThe A through F system was less specific. ìI also think there is a stigma attached to the A, B, C, D, F system,î she said. On each report card parents receive now, the 5-1 system specifically explains what each number means in terms of the childís achievement of a specific skill. For example, a 5 means that a student has exceeded grade level expectations in a certain standard. A 3 means a student has met the minimum expectations and a 1 indicates a student is significantly below grade level. Most students will not receive 5s, Ashlin said. ìItís not going to be easy to get a 5,î she said. Ashlin said parents should expect to see their studentsí numbers increase during the course of a year. ìWhile grades may vary from one trimester to the next, the progress on standards should continue to improve,î Ashlin said. ìItís a good indicator of improvement in the skill.î For special education students, Ashlin said the new system will require them ñ and their parents ñ to work hard to improve their ratings on standards. There are nearly 500 special education students with a variety of needs from speech and language disabilities to several with multiple severe imparities. Ashlin presented the latest numbers of special education students in several categories to the North Branch School Board at last weekís meeting. The majority of special education students in the North Branch system have specific learning disorders that must be addressed through individual education plans or IEPs. Ashlin said that while special education students will be held to the same standards as their peers, it is the studentís IEP and its goals that determine a studentís educational program and progress. An IEP has modifications or adaptations that are taken into account when grading a student, Ashlin said. ìFor parents of special education students, the scores may appear lower than they would like,î Ashlin said. ìBut these standards are to show active progress and improvement by the student.î For example, in the kindergarten standard that a student must be able to count from 1 to 31, a student may receive a 1 in the first trimester because he or she can only count to 15. However, in the second trimester, improvement in the standard may show a 2 because the student can reach 25. ìA child with a disability will have to work hard, sure,î Ashlin said. ìIt is going to be more difficult for them to achieve a skill. ìThe standards take away treating special education and regular education students differently. ìThey donít say that because you are disabled that you will have to work harder or wonít have to work harder than other students.î So far in North Branch, the system is working smoothly. The new system applies only to students in K-5 in North Branch. However, at this time, fifth-graders at the North Branch Middle School are not using the new standards report card, Ashlin said. She said each school runs report cards through systems inside the school building and the fifth-graders at the middle school will remain on an A-F grade scale until the computers can be reorganized. ìEventually all fifth-graders will be on a standards report card,î she said. So far, the North Branch schools have implemented two of the four core studies standards. Language arts and math were the first two standards developed by the Minnesota Department of Education. They were put into place at the beginning of the school year. Social studies and science standards are expected to be released soon, according to the state Department of Education Web site. Other specialist classes like art and music also will have standards, but those have not yet been developed. ©ECM Post Review |