With the second semester starting, and high school around the corner, students are more stressed out about grades than ever. With students catching up on assignments after the GUSD cyber attack, trying to check different websites to stay updated with their grades, and constantly studying for many different classes, one question remains: Is the school grading system, the one that we students spend so much time and effort trying to excel in, antiquated? And, along with that, are report cards obsolete? The Oxford Language dictionary definition of a Report Card is “a teacher’s written assessment of a student’s work, progress, and conduct, sent home to a parent or guardian”. There are three parts to a report card: Grades, Citizenship, and Comments.
Grades are the first part of a report card. Many students agree that grades are the most important part of a report card, since students have to consistently study and complete assignments to keep their averageup. Along with grades being provided in the report cards, they are also updated on the Parent Portal. Removing report cards from schools, and just keeping grades on the Parent Portal would be quite problematic, because grades can be inconsistent on the Parent Portal for two reasons. First off, not all teachers use the Parent Portal for constant grade updates. Some teachers use other websites such as Google Classroom ortheir own software to grade students. This was useful for some teachers when the GUSD Wifi was hacked. Since the PE teachers used a software unrelated to GUSD, they had no problems with grading while most of the school was in chaos. The second problem is that some parents aren’t able to consistently check their child’s grades, because not only do many parents and guardians have jobs and schedules outside of their child’s academic success, but many parents have more than one child, which can lead to parents logging in and checking 14-21 different grades for their kids. It is so much easier for parents and guardians to just check their child’s grades on a report card.
The last two parts of a report card are citizenship grades and comments. Citizenship grades are letter grades describing the behavior,or citizenship, of a student. Unlike grades, students can not always be aware of their citizenship grades. This is contradicting the purpose of middle and high school, their purpose is to increase the level of independence for students, and aid them in solving problems on their own, without the involvement of their parents. But, the only time students can be alerted of their citizenship status is when progress reports and report cards can be viewed by their parents. A reasonable solution to this problem is for teachers to provide citizenship grades as often as normal grades, updating them when necessary for the student. This would give students the opportunity to check their citizenship grades, just as much of their average grade.
The last part of report cards and progress reports are comments. Comments are the most obsolete part of a report card. They are short, unexplanatory, and pretty much restate the citizenship grade. This is not the teachers’ fault though, because teachers are only able to choose comments from a dropdown menu, instead of being able to personalize. The main issue is that report cards can come as an unwelcome surprise to many families, and some parts of the report cards can feel obsolete and useless. If the district were to get rid of comments on report cards, a students knowledge on their grades and citizenship wouldn’t change.
Since it is very difficult and inconsistent to access all of a student’s grades, since some teachers use different software and websites to grade students, and citizenship grades are rarely given, it would be convenient if the district provided one website for students and parents to go to, it would make it easier and more convenient for parents, students, and teachers. The problem that arose recently is that if one universal website was provided by GUSD, if the district was hacked again, no teacher would be able to access their grading source. When asked about her opinion on the solution to report card problems, Ms. Monaco said, “We can’t force parents to look at the grades, we can’t force students to care about their grades, but we can make it as easy as possible for people to access the information…this places the burden back on teachers for communication.” While Rosemont teachers can’t change the mindset of parents and students, they can do their best to guide families in the right direction to ensure their student’s academic success.