Report cards make the grade

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This article was published 16/05/2012 (4976 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You can let your breath out now, Mom and Dad — the new parent-friendly report cards will still tell you if your child works well with others.

However, they’ll no longer report whether a child exceeds, meets, or is below expectations — expectations few adults not fluent in educational jargon have been able to comprehend.

And every junior high and high school public student in the province will have the same report card that shows how they’re doing in each subject — senior high in marks out of 100.

The new report cards will be in use province-wide in September 2013, though about 70 per cent of schools will start using them voluntarily this September, Education Minister Nancy Allan said.

There will be three standard templates — grades 1 to 6, grades 7 and 8, and grades 9 to 12.

“One of the concerns we heard very clearly in the past was language” that didn’t give parents a clear understanding of how their child was doing, Allan told a news conference at Sister MacNamara School in downtown Winnipeg. “That language has been taken out of report cards,” Allan said.

“This is a plain-language report card that shows parents how their children are doing in school, what supports they might need,” she said.

“I’m a change agent — you might have noticed,” Allan laughed.

Allan said teachers will be expected to write personal comments about each student — personal comments, she emphasized, not downloading, cutting and pasting from an online list of buzzwords, as some schools direct teachers to do.

Currently, there is no standard report card across Manitoba, and different divisions and even different schools in a division do not show marks or progress or a child’s understanding of his or her school work the same way.

“We all know that young people do better when their parents are involved in their education,” Allan said.

Allan launched the overhaul of report cards about 20 months ago, enlisting teachers, superintendents, school trustees, bureaucrats and parents in a project in which they apparently worked well with others.

Manitoba Teachers’ Society president Paul Olson said Tuesday the end result is a compromise, and “broadly speaking, we’re happy with it.” Olson said he doesn’t want any school to rush to implement the new report card.

“Any idea badly implemented is a train wreck,” he said.

Teachers are not all convinced the software will be ready in time for the fall, or that it will work properly, or that they will have the training and supports they need, so some divisions are waiting until 2013, he said.

“Frankly, good for them,” Olson said. “You don’t go halfway and screw it up.”

He said the province has made it clear teachers are to write personal comments for each student. “That will be a shift for high schools. Junior high has been a mixed bag,” Olson said.

“Parents have clearly said, don’t write us a novel,” the MTS president said.

Two Sister MacNamara mothers said parents are happy with the new report cards after piloting them this year and holding extensive discussions.

“It is easy to understand. The new report card is easier, because learning and behaviour are separated,” said Hinda Ibrahim.

“It gives parents the information they need about their children’s education,” said Kawser Ali.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca