They will provide a more detailed look at each student’s performance and reflect the district’s emphasis on learning processes.
By: Steve Rauscher
MONTGOMERY School district administrators unveiled a new elementary school report card Monday night, to the apparent delight of the township Board of Education.
The new report cards will provide a more detailed look at each student’s performance in the classroom and reflect the district’s emphasis on learning processes, or teaching students how to learn, said district Director of Language Arts Russ Walsh.
Mr. Walsh and Erin Peacock, director of science, co-chaired the committee that designed the report cards. The committee based its design on input from parents and teachers, as well as the latest scholarship on classroom assessment, Mr. Walsh said.
"A number of teachers were coming to us and saying the report cards were not matching the kind of instruction they were giving anymore," he said. "They realized that, as we were changing the way we were teaching in practice, we also needed to change the way we were reporting what we teach."
In addition to teaching traditional skills such as how to read, write and do arithmetic the district also stresses teaching children how to solve problems and apply concepts, such as scientific method.
"The students are engaging in activities that create learning," Mr. Walsh said. "We’re trying to develop meaning and understanding, rather than just telling them what they should know."
Because of the new approach to teaching, Mr. Walsh said, the traditional report cards that simply showed whether a child was making unsatisfactory, satisfactory or outstanding progress in the traditional subject areas could not accurately reflect a student’s actual development.
The new report cards will show dozens more assessment areas specific to the material taught within each marking period, such as multiplying by 10s, while assessing learning processes, such as "is the child making good choices in his own reading," Mr. Walsh said.
"There are numerous items to describe a student’s performance in every subject area," he said.
School board President Linda Romano said she is "very excited" with the new report card format.
"It gives so much more information to the parents that the old ones didn’t," she said. "A lot of effort went into putting it together and I think (the board) is very happy with the product."
Mr. Walsh said the district may examine middle school and high school assessment, but because of the need to adhere to a relatively standard format in order to place students in other schools and universities, any changes made would be minor compared to the revamped elementary school report cards.
The district will mail out the new report cards beginning in December.

