MEXICO – The big change in student learning at SAD 43 is in the way that learning is being reported.

SAD 43 administrators on Wednesday wrapped up a series of three forums meant to explain new report cards that will be issued early next month to students’ parents.

The administrators readily acknowledged that much of the move to so-called standards-based reporting will involve experimentation and getting the wrinkles out.

Since 1997, the district and much of the state have been using the Maine Learning Results criteria, measured through the Maine Educational Assessment tests, as the pattern for determining what students are expected to know at each grade level.

Now, student progress made in that set of educational standards is being reported, for grades kindergarten through nine, in a non-traditional way. Those report cards will carry Es for exceeds the standards, Ms for meets them, Ps for partially meeting them, and Ns for not meeting the standards in place of the traditional numerical or letter grades.

Grades will be solely based on a child’s ability to meet standards prescribed by the state.

Things that counted before in helping to determine a grade, such as effort, behavior, neatness, completing extra work and others, will not be used to assess the child. These characteristics will be measured elsewhere on the report card.

Parents got the first taste of the new reporting recently when progress reports were sent home. The new grading system was used with them, prompting some parents to question how a child could get an “E,” but get lower assessments in neatness or effort.

Another questioned whether the standards are too high, citing a comment from her child’s teacher that missing one item in an assessment was all that was allowed to meet a particular standard. Missing more could drop that grade to “P” or “N.”

“We don’t have all the answers now,” conceded Superintendent Jim Hodgkin. “But we are challenging children more by raising the standards.”

Gloria Jenkins, curriculum coordinator for the district, said her school is still trying to determine how complete and how correct an answer must be to meet the standards.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect. We’re still playing around with accurate and correct,” she said.

Rumford and Virginia elementary schools Principal Ann Chamberlin said students know what tasks are expected to meet the standard before an assessment test is given. Assessing the work is done with a rubric, a measuring tool that outlines details for correctly meeting each standard.

The district plans further forums as the year progresses.

One will involve a lesson in PowerSchool, a Web site that allows parents to check on their child’s progress. Another will deal with the new grading system and how it may affect high school students. Mountain Valley High School plans to continue using traditional grades, at least for the next few years. The third will be an explanation of the new reporting system and how it affects special education students.

eadams@sunjournal.com

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