I hate to spoil LIL' LORI'S excitement on the arrival of the much maligned DISTRICT REPORT CARDS////
BUT.....
I believe that many of these reports will go unread because of the lack of translation.
It looks like LPS is finally distributing the state school and district report cards to parents. Remember, these were suppose to be distributed in October. I did not have a letter with the report I received. Did anyone else? The following link will show you a pretty nice sample letter the DESE has on their website that districts can use and customize.
http://www.doe.mass.edu/apa/accountability/reportcard/CoverLetter.pdf
These reports are 4 months late and the DESE had to contact LPS several times to get them to send them out. I have already had parents contact me asking me what this report means and they were English speaking parents. Again, the reports we received did not come with a cover letter outlining or explaining some of the data for parents. I don't know if other parents received a letter with their reports, but my guess is they didn't. All districts needed to do was copy the template letter provided by the DESE and customize it where needed. It doesn't get much easier than that! However, it appears LPS chose not to take the time and effort to include a cover letter with their reports. This doesn't really surprise me though. Teachers sometimes give students a grading rubric when they have a project so they know exactly what they need to do in order to get a specific grade. The students who really don't care if they do well or get good grades will only do what they have to in order to get a D or D-. To them, this is good enough, as long as they don't fail. Of course, some don't even care if they fail. This is how LPS operates. They typically do whatever they need to do in order to barely meet the state requirements, and as we all know, in many instances, they don't even do that! These reports are a good example of this. If we all remember, after being contacted by the DESE because LPS had not distributed these reports yet, LPS decided that they would just send a very generic letter to parents and not include a copy of the reports. This was back in January. However, this did not meet the state requirements that very clearly state the district must distribute a copy of the reports to parents. Therefore, the DESE had to contact LPS again.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the DESE, information that must accompany report cards:
In addition to the report cards themselves, federal law requires that certain information be communicated to families of children enrolled in a district’s schools. This information must include, at a minimum:
•The accountability and assistance level of the child's school and district
•The reason for the level designation, such as the aggregate or high needs groups not meeting cumulative progress and performance index (PPI) targets
•An explanation of what the level designation means
•An explanation of the school and/or district improvement activities the district has initiated to increase performance in Level 2-4 schools, and how parents/guardians can become involved in school and district improvement activities
•For Title I schools, information about right-to-know requirements regarding the professional qualifications of the student's classroom teacher(s)
Distribution requirements
Report cards must be distributed to parents/guardians at least one of the following ways: (1) via U.S. mail; (2) by distributing hard copies to parents/guardians, such as giving report cards to students to bring home in their backpacks; or (3) electronically.
•The district should prominently display or link to report cards on its website and place hard copies on record at the library, town hall, community centers, and/or other public places where parents/guardians and other stakeholders have access to them.
•If the district has an existing method of communicating this information to parents/guardians, it does not need to use the Department's report card; however, the report card must contain all federally-required elements, including NAEP data.
http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=7043
Since LPS is already failing, you would think this administration would be doing everything they could and even going above and beyond to reach out to parents, make them aware of what's going on and where our schools and district stand, and to get them involved. I believe there are only about 10 school districts in the state that have level 4 failing schools and Lynn is among them with two level 4 schools. I think that says a lot!!