Families Share Insight on New Report Card Format
The Office of Family and Community Engagement (FACE) knows that when it comes to making important decisions that will affect the lives of District students, parents and family members are the best advisers. Most recently, parents/guardians participated in a focus group with the District’s Academic Office on the new K-8 report card format and the new Student Information System (SIS).
Parent/guardians, many of whom were active School Advisory Council members representing schools from across the city, attended the focus group to share their thoughts on the current K-8 report card and offer insight and advice to District administrators about what they’d like to see in a new report card.
Andrew McKnight, grandfather of a Kindergartner and second grader at William Dick School in North Philadelphia, started off the conversation about the current report card by stating bluntly, “It’s pretty vague.”
Mr. McKnight’s grandson has a speech impediment, and while teachers have assured him that his grandson is doing well in school, his report card does not reflect this.
“The old grading system, it was ancient—A, B, C, D—but at least you understood it,” he said.
Joey McAteer, father of a Kindergartner and second grader at Alexander Adaire School in Fishtown, added, “I’d love to see it be more interactive.” Currently, the report card just comes in a paper copy. Mr. McAteer explained that he would like to be able to click on subjects to see what his child has been learning and their progress in individual subjects.
Other focus group participants concurred, saying they wished the report card provided more information and was more accessible to non-educators. “The legend to me just isn’t that clear or informative,” Lauren Summers, parent of a third grader and soon-to-be Kindergartner at General George A. McCall School in southeast Center City, said, adding that the report card is “hard to take in—even visually.”
Nakia Brunson, parent of a third and fourth grader at Paul L. Dunbar School in North Philadelphia, works at an afterschool program with children who are homeschooled. She commented that the format of homeschooled children’s report cards is much more helpful for parents; parents are given weekly progress reports so they know how to support their children leading up to their quarterly report cards.
Parents and guardians also talked about the merits and drawbacks of having a section on the report card that rated behavior, most expressing disdain for the behavior “rating system,” which seems overly broad and does not help parents determine how to help their children with behavior issues.
“If there’s going to be a rating on behavior,” Saundra Atwell, grandparent of an eighth grade student at Mary Bethune School in upper North Philadelphia, said, “I’m gonna need more than a 1, 2, 3.”
“I would like to see the grade and the teacher’s comments relatively connected on the report card,” Ms. Atwell added, to which many of the focus group participants agreed. In its current state, the report card does not clearly delineate which teacher’s comments belong to which subject.
Mr. McKnight echoed this comment, saying, “They tend to put it all in one box.” The lack of specification and detail in the comments prevents parents/guardians from understanding how they can better support their child, whether it be in the area of academic achievement or behavioral improvement.
“[My grandson] will be like, ‘Grandpop, [the teacher] treats me mean because I finish my work and then have nothing to do,” Mr. McKnight explained. “And then it reflects in his report card.”
In the end, the group came to a consensus that the new report card should be more interactive and digitally accessible.
“Anything that’s more interactive, the better it is—for the parents, for the children,” Mr. McAteer said. He hopes to see a much more comprehensive report card in the future, with links to classroom materials and quizzes/tests.
Mr. McAteer also commented that as a parent, he receives many resources to help his children learn at home, but these resources are provided sporadically throughout the year rather than being located in a single, central location.
“I am computer literate, so I can create spreadsheets and stuff—but I shouldn’t have to!” Mr. McAteer said. “I shouldn’t have to create a spreadsheet of all my child’s passwords.”
In closing, Ms. Brunson suggested that the key to creating a better, more useful report card is getting parents on board with and educated about what they’re reading and seeing in the report card itself. “I think you need to get parent involvement,” she said, so that all the hard work that educators and central office administrators put into designing a new, more comprehensive report card is put to good use.
