Sharon Freundel is the Director of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at the Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation’s Capital. She also gives regular adult education classes at the Georgetown Synagogue in Washington, D.C., and teaches Tanach, Jewish philosophy and contemporary halachic issues to adults and teenagers.
Sharon Freundel describes an alternative to traditional report cards.
As anyone involved in Jewish Day School Education knows, many of our parents are Type A personalities, involved in all aspects of their children’s education, wanting to assure the biggest “bang for their buck.”
Furthermore, anyone involved in grade-school education in general knows that the optimal way to facilitate growth and development in our students lies in the “whole-child approach.” We do not teach minds; we teach children. Victor Frankl states succinctly that, “Art has been defined as unity in diversity. I would define Man as unity in spite of multiplicity” (Frankl, 1988, p. 22). Frankl articulates the idea that we cannot subdivide the human into physical, mental, and spiritual aspects, that each person’s planes are inextricably linked. We must approach a child’s intellectual, physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual (in this case meaning “meta-physical” in addition to “religious”) facets together, as part of an organic whole, and we must share our assessments as fully as possible with parents so that the child may make maximal progress through the home-school partnership.
At the Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation’s Capital in Washington, DC, we have applied a “whole-child” philosophy to our routine and specific reporting to parents. This article will focus on how our semi-annual report cards work in conjunction with our semi-annual parent-teacher conferences to give parents the fullest possible picture of who their children are and the progress they have made.
Report cards at JPDS-NC do not contain grades; they are composed of competency assessments and comments in each subject area. This gives parents a more in-depth look at their children’s strengths and areas for growth. For example, a “C” in Humash on a particular report card gives no indication to parents of the child’s issues in Humash. Is the student weak in translating? Does she have difficulty conceptualizing? Can he only parse a pasuk incompletely? By breaking down the various skills involved in each subject, we can give parents a transparent view of their children’s progress. For academic areas, “grades” are based on a 1-5 scale, as follows:
5—Exceeding grade-level expectations
4—Meeting grade-level expectations
3—Approaching grade-level expectations
2—Making progress towards grade-level expectations
1—Not currently making progress towards grade-level expectations
NA—Not assessed at this time
One may assert that this scale invites subjectivity based on a particular teacher’s view of the grade-level expectations. Four different interventions address this concern. First, we expect that roughly 80% of every competency assessment on 80% of the report cards will be 4’s. Statistically, if this expectation is not met, the teacher’s expectations are too high or too low and need to be adjusted to the requirements of that particular cohort of children. Second, we define “4” as a broad category, which is the central part of a bell curve rather than a point. Any child who falls within 1 standard deviation of the grade level expectation receives a “4.” A child who is +2, +3, or higher receives a “5” without specification as to how much that child has exceeded expectations. A child who is -2 standard deviations away from 0 receives a “3”; -3 standard deviations, a “2,” and any outlier would receive a “1.” Third, we teach particular children for whom some competencies are not relevant. If a child has severe dyslexia, for example, which prevents him or her from decoding Hebrew, that child receives an NA for the competency assessment that reads, “Reads and translates biblical verses fluently.” Finally, every subject area in every report card is read as a whole by an academic director to insure that the report card is internally consistent and externally consistent with reports from different teachers of the same cohort noting approximately similar grades.
In addition, every report card begins with a series of course overviews in which each teacher describes the content areas and skills taught that semester. This way, a parent has a clear idea of the basis for the competency expectations in each discipline.
For non-academic areas of study, such as Physical Education, Art, Music, Israeli Dance, and the like, we use a letter system rather than a number system as follows:
C—Consistently
M—Most of the time
S—Sometimes
NI—Needs Improvement
NA—Not assessed at this time
Each sub-set in the report card contains not only a number or letter associated with a variety of competencies, but comments which reflect on specific traits, including accomplishments and challenges, and share anecdotes about that particular child. The comments also include indications of interventions teachers tried in addressing a specific area for growth and reports on the extent to which the outcome was successful. The comments do not repeat information already covered in the competency assessments, but may contain, for example, some suggestions to parents on how the student may improve in a particular aspect of the course.
Each teacher writes his or her own section of the report card. At the end of each card is a “Personal Development” section, divided into “Study Skills and Work Habits” and “Social and Emotional Development” – the competency assessments of which receive letter rather than number scores. We give the teaching teams time at staff meetings and during professional days before report cards are due to discuss each student to confer on that child and determine how to write his or her report to maintain honesty and forthrightness together with kindness and compassion.
There are many advantages to this type of reporting. It gives the parents a more complete picture of where their children are in their social and academic growth. It drives the teachers to be reflective about each child. (We remind teachers that, if the name of the child in the comment section is covered, they should be able to identify that child by the specific nature of the comments alone.) It also mandates that teachers sit and consider together who a child is throughout the course of the day. Our report cards are sent home electronically as PDF’s, so, although they run to between 8 and 13 pages apiece, no paper is wasted in printing them out.
There are, of course, also disadvantages to this system. The process is quite time consuming, hence, the semi-annual versus quarterly reports. Teachers are informed at the beginning of each school year of the four due dates each semester for their reports. The first item due is the course overviews, which can be written up to a month before the end of the semester. Class lists are then divided alphabetically into three sections with each third due on a successive week. As soon as teachers complete each set of reports, an academic director reads the reports as a whole and returns comments and questions to the appropriate teacher. Following all of the revisions, the reports go to the coordinator of Informational Technology, who formats them, puts in “absent” and “tardy” numbers, and passes them on to the administrative assistants who e-mail each one directly to the parents.
The other two reports we provide each year come during face-to-face conferences with the parents, when the child’s areas of strength as well as areas for growth are discussed and presented in a written form (a list of bullet points) that parents sign and which becomes part of the child’s permanent record. Parents have a chance during the conference to add their own comments to the report.
Many people question whether middle schools (JPDS-NC only goes through sixth grade) accept “non-graded” reports. The Head of School, Director of General Studies, and Director of Admission have visited the schools to which our children apply and have explained the system we use for our report cards. We have never received a word of complaint from another school and have never had a student rejected from a school because of the structure of our reporting system.
Both at the end of each school year and before the first set of report cards are due, all competencies are reviewed and revised as necessary by the teachers and the Academic Director for that discipline. Therefore, the competencies reflect any emendations as we change and upgrade our curricula.
Teachers receive regular workshops on report card writing. Some of the important pointers that we review are:
- Formatting:
- Do put different ideas into different paragraphs.
- Do spell check and grammar check.
- Do italicize proper names of books, movies, projects, etc. and all foreign words, including Hebrew.
- Do translate all Hebrew terms. Do write them in transliteration as opposed to Hebrew characters.
- Language:
- Do wish students “much success” rather than “best of luck.” (“Best of luck” makes it sound like their success will be a matter of chance.)
- Do minimize hyperbole such as “extremely” and “fantastic” or use of exclamation points.
- Do phrase sentences focused on the child rather than yourself. (For example, rather than saying, “I was impressed with his presentation,” the comment could be phrased, “His presentation was impressive.”)
- Do differentiate between adjectives and adverbs. As teachers of the English language, we need to be diligent in presenting professional and correctly-phrased reports.
- Do phrase the personal development section in the plural, using “we” rather than “I.” Although one teacher composes the section, it presents conversations that all of the teachers together have had.
- Do write all activities in the past tense; characterizations can remain in the present tense. Even though the reports may be written in the course of the semester, the parents will not receive and read them until the semester is over.
- Do not repeat anecdotally what is already covered in the competencies.
- Do not make reference to tutors, counselors, or other therapists. Do allude to “additional help.” (In some jurisdictions, it is illegal to allude to outside help, as this is part of the child’s permanent record.)
- Do not write “tried his/her best.” This makes it sound like the effort was not sufficient. Do use a phrase such as “put in a great deal of effort.”
- Do hyphenate adjectives such as “hard-working.”
- Do avoid terms which may be perceived as belittling, such as “kid,” “sweet,” or “little.”
- Reflection:
- Do be reflective and specific about characterizations. Avoid terms such as “nice,” “a good student,” and the like.
- Do avoid phrases such as “is well liked by” or “is a valued member of our community,” which place the judgments on the students rather than yourself.
- Do explain every S, NI, 1, or 2 which is not self-evident. Parents need to know why their child is not at grade level or needs improvement in a specific area.
- During the second semester, do write a comment to update progress on any specific first-semester comment.
- Do be reflective and specific about interventions. Do avoid generalizations such as “we worked with the student on.”
- Do share specific anecdotes to illustrate your comments.
In addition, we ask the teachers to read their own comments to themselves out loud with the “ears” of a parent to get a sense of what a parent would be drawing out of a particular report card. Teachers may not write about any major issues which have not previously been communicated to the parents. A report card is not the first place a parent should find out, for example, that the child never hands in homework. It is a place for summation, for updates, but not for surprises.
It took approximately two years for all of the parents to understand our reporting system. When we first began this system, we had a 1-4 scoring guide. Some of the parents viewed the numbers as parallel to GPA’s and could not understand why their child did not score a “4” which they viewed as an A. This issue has been for the most part obviated with our switch to a 1-5 scoring guide.
We believe that we have created a practical and thorough method of sharing information with parents about their children. Despite that, every year, we discover something new that would benefit from tweaking in our system. As with all curricula, reporting methods should be reviewed and revised as necessary on a continual basis.
References
Frankl, V. (1988) The Will to Meaning. New York: Penguin