New look, same grades

Parents of the youngest Rockville Centre elementary school students will see something new when report cards are mailed out at the end of this month.

At a Board of Education briefing session last week, Christopher Pellettieri, the district’s assistant

superintendent for curriculum, announced a new report card format for students in kindergarten and first and second grades.

“We decided we were going to make new report cards based on Common Core Standards,” Pellettieri said. “We decided we’d take the old report card, take a look at it and start to build a new report card.”

The new cards are smaller, scaled down from legal size to letter size. The district also changed the performance level scale from 1 to 5 to 1 to 4.

Students will be graded for effort, behavior and developmental in each subject area, with a C (Consistent), D (Developing) or I (Inconsistent). They will also receive a grade of 1 to 4, with 4 being the highest, for specific subjects and skills. If a subject has not yet been taught, it will be marked NT. The numbers will be based on class participation, assignments, homework and both formal and informal assessments.

“I think [the new report card] is going to look a lot better and read a lot better for all our teachers and parents,” Pellettieri said.

He explained that the new cards were created by a group of teachers, principals and parents. “We thought it was very important for parents, who are going to utilize this tool, to have some say,” he said.

A parent’s guide to the new report cards is available on the district’s website.

During the year, Pellettieri will convene another group of teachers, principals and parents to work on designing new report cards for grades 3 through 5. “We will look at the standards and the grades and our teaching this year,” he said, “and start to develop a program as we did this year.”