New report cards coming for seventh graders

Starting next school year, seventh graders in the Jackson County School System will be given standards-based report cards.


Unlike traditional report cards that give students a letter grade — such as A, B, C or F — to designate their success in the classroom, standards-based report cards outline students’ academic progress on the state’s curriculum, the Georgia Performance Standards.

For each grading period, the newer report card uses a different system — such as “E” for “exceeds the standard” — to designate if students are mastering the state’s standards. Students are expected to make continued progress on the standards throughout the school year.

The Jackson County School System started using standards-based report cards in its elementary schools last school year and expanded it to sixth grade this year.

For the 2010-2011 school year, the district plans to roll out standards-based report cards to seventh grade. At some point, the program will be expanded to eighth grade.

But extending standards-based report cards to more middle school students initially raised concerned from some teachers, according to Kathy Miller, director of curriculum and accountability for the school system.

The concerns centered on how standards-based report cards would affect students when they get to high school, she said. After listening to those concerns from teachers, some aspects of the program were revamped.

“There was no, ‘Why are we doing this?’,” Miller said during the board of education’s annual retreat last week. “It was like everyone was just on board. We understand now. You’ve listened to us. We’re going to tweak what needs to be tweaked. And we’re going to move forward with it.”

One of the changes next year for middle school students will be the occasional return of numerical grades to prepare students for the transition to high school.

Georgia uses numerical grades to determine a Grade Point Average (GPA), which is then used to determine a student’s eligibility for the HOPE Scholarship to earn college tuition.

“We certainly didn’t want students to go blindly into high school having these standards that you ‘meet’ or ‘exceed,’” Miller said of the upcoming changes.

Next week, students and teachers in randomly-selected classes will be given a survey about standards-based report cards. That’ll follow with a parent survey on March 22-24.

In addition, the district will meet with educators and administrators through the school year and the summer to finalize a report card in June before an academic teachers assessment summit.

Meetings about standards-based report cards with parents will be held at each middle school in August.

Jackson County is one of a several school systems in the state using standards-based reports cards.

The Northeast Georgia RESA (Regional Educational Service Agency) asked the district in November to host a seminar on the program with 25-30 representatives from school systems throughout the state, Miller said.

Rise Hawley, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, said the biggest challenge for the new grading system has been the actual report card.

“There’s not a lot of complaints about the process,” she said. “Parents generally say, ‘Yes, I know more about what my kid knows.’ The teachers are saying, ‘Yes, I know those standards inside and out, and I know what this kid knows, and I know what this kid doesn’t know.”