Understanding My Child's Report Card

In the Standards-Based Grading system, both students and parents are aware of clear learner outcomes and the pace for expected mastery of each grade level target.

With the traditional grading system, many elements are combined to determine your child’s grade--test scores, quizzes, completed homework, classroom participation, extra credit--then, the average of that semester’s work equates into a percentage that correlates with a specific letter grade. Standards-Based Grading separates those elements. While we believe all should be addressed, now parents will be able to see what specific academic concept their child needs help with. Standards-Based Grading measures a student’s mastery of grade-level standards by prioritizing the most recent, consistent level of performance and solely reflects progress on priority topic targets based on a scale of 1-4. These levels do not equate to an A-F grading scale.

The grade-level target for each learning standard is a 3. When a 3 is earned, the student has met the grade-level expectations for that topic. While some topics have expectations for mastery early in the year, many of the topics do not have mastery expectations until the end of the school year. It is normal for students to advance from 1 to 3 as they develop greater proficiency of the standard. A student who achieves a level 3 on all topics on the report card by the end of the year has mastered all grade-level expectations. You will likely see more 1s early in the year and 3s later reflecting the necessary progression and mastery level of the skills. At level 4, a student demonstrates understanding and performance beyond expected proficiency and has exceeded the standards. Level 4 is challenging and achieved less frequently.

We have created rubrics for each grade level for the standards tested to help you better understand your child’s score.