District staff defend Jackson's grading system

Teachers and administrators spent nearly two hours at Tuesday night's school board meeting trying to justify the Jackson School District's new grading system to more than 50 upset parents.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, filling the school administration office, parents listened as more than a dozen staff members explained how the system was researched, how it's working and how it continues to be reevaluated.

The district began using Standard Based Report Cards for students in kindergarten through fifth grade in 2010, but parents told the school board they felt the new grading system was hastily put in place without properly training teachers.

A group of concerned parents submitted questions to the school board in advance of Tuesday's meeting, which staff took turns answering.

"We're still teaching the same material essentially, it's just a change in how the information is being reported to you," said Lance McClard, assistant principal at South Elementary.

Assistant superintendent Dr. Rita Fisher said the district began considering transitioning from a letter grade system to a standards-based report card in 2003.

"We knew we needed to do something different," Fisher said. "We knew we were good, but if we were really going to be great there were some things we needed to change."

School staff began training on the new system which instead of giving students one letter grade in each subject, assesses students with a numeric score of one through four on multiple skills within a subject. These standards are based on state education standards and were developed by teachers and principals in the school district, McClard said. At the same time, schools began to implement Professional Learning Communities in which teachers in the same grade level work together to develop lesson plans each week. All school buildings within the district have gone through training on Professional Learning Communities, a state school reform initiative, Fisher said.

In 2007, the school district contacted other schools that had switched to standards based report cards, McClard said, and in 2008 teachers and staff began developing districtwide learning goals. This process continued through 2009 and teachers attended training workshops on the new system during 2010, McClard said.

But Brad Noel, who has two children in the district, said he feels like the grading system has been forced down parents' throats.

"It was done all at once," he said. "Every other school who has done it has done it one grade at a time and starting with high school."

Noel asked the board to form a citizens advisory panel to work with the school district on the grading system.

School board member Cathy Goodman, who chaired the meeting, said the board would consider it.

As part of standards-based report card system, teachers must reteach and retest students until they master individual skills. This concerned several parents present Tuesday.

John Keene, who has a second-grade daughter in the district, asked how many times students were being retaught and retested.

"We don't continually test students we don't think are ready," said Jennie Webb, a first-grade teacher at South Elementary. "Standard-based report cards have not changed how I teach. Good teachers have always found ways to go back and help struggling students. The only difference is now I'm reporting that to parents."

Kristi Uhrhan, who has two students in the district, is concerned, that more advanced students will become bored as lessons are taught and retaught to other students.

Samantha Trankler, a third-grade teacher at West Lane Elementary, explained that teachers prepare different lessons for different groups of students based on whether they need an extra push to meet the standard, or have already mastered it.

"We're able to form flexible groupings that change with every subject area and learning goal. So they get instruction they need," she said.

Keene asked how Trankler found time to prepare so many different lessons. Trankler explained that teachers in the same grade levels work together and will split students into different classrooms, with different teachers working with specific skill levels.

But this kind of arrangement isn't an option as smaller schools with only one classroom of each grade, Uhrhan said.

After more than an hour and a half of presentations, parents were given only a few minutes to ask questions before the board moved on to other unrelated agenda items.

mmiller@semissourian.com

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