By Paul J. Condra
The surprising shift in opinion comes after local PTA members spent much of the past year either trying to stop the new grading system or advocating that school officials work closer than they had been with parents who said they felt left out of the deal.
The new program, called STAR, Students Reaching and Trying, replaces the age-old honor roll system with a new scale of measuring and awarding students who improve their grades over the year. Similar to the honor roll, the program awards a star to students who maintain an A average. But other students can earn stars if they improve their marks by a half-grade from what they received for the first grading period.
Two weeks ago, the first class of fourth-graders was sent home with the new report cards.
At this point, it seems to be OK, said Donna Leban, a Rhame Avenue Elementary School PTA member whose son is in the fourth grade. It's taken off and the feedback so far is that [parents] seem to be OK with it.
But, like many parents, Leban wasn't as supportive three months ago when she and many others addressed the school board to protest the STAR system. At that meeting in late August, Leban said she was afraid her fourth-grade son would be short-shrifted by the new grading system. She was also worried that at that point, East Rockaway board members still hadn't been able to explain to parents just how STAR was going to work.
Tina Trantell, the president of the PTA at Rhame Avenue, said she, too, was very skeptical at first. Then, after her fourth-grade daughter came home with her first report card, she said she had few complaints.
It looked different because it didn't have the numbers, she said, referring to the replacing of number grades with letter grades. But, she said, I think it's OK. I can deal with that.
Originally, parents felt getting rid of the honor roll would eliminate a recognition system that has been a marker of achievement since they themselves were in elementary school. But school officials said the time has come to implement a system of recognizing the non-honor roll students, too. They wanted a way of awarding every student that succeeds, be it from a B to an A, or a D to a C.
You go to these assemblies and the kids come down and half of them are called up to receive their honor roll awards. The only problem with that is we have another 50 to 60 percent of kids that can't earn honor roll status, said Centre Avenue Elementary School president Timothy Silk at a board meeting in August.
The STAR program is one of many new ideas and approaches to education that are popping up in the East Rockaway School District, which can, in part, be attributed to the new superintendent, Arnie Dodge, who is working to break the mold of education.
In November, Dodge held a day-long conference for teachers to which he invited an education specialist who encouraged teachers to create a shared vision of what they want to do with the district. Many in the district said they feel suffocated by state education mandates and want ways to regain control of the classroom. The STAR program represents one way in which the district is acting independently to improve its schools, and parents seem willing to take a walk with it.
The people that didn't want to go along, they realize there was going to be a change anyway, Trantell said. I know the people that worked on this worked really, really hard. Before I can say I can't stand this program, I have to see how it works.
This year, only fourth graders will use the STAR system. It will be implemented for fourth and fifth-grade students next year.
