Howard public schools to eliminate class rank, change elementary report cards
SCHOOLS, From page 1 Homework guidelines Three years ago, the Board of Education tasked the school system to create guidelines, not a policy, about homework.
The school system, she said, set out to create “reasonable boundaries that are flexible” when it comes to homework for middle and high school students.
“Homework has been a challenging concept for us,” Walker said.
Wagner said that when assigning homework, the work needs to be intentional and important to either prepare for a lesson or master skills learned in class.
“The board asked for us to take a more active stance on [what] homework did permit and [what it] doesn’t permit,” Walker said.
She added the school system would like to see the bulk of homework be assigned and completed during the week to give students a break on weekends to explore other passions and interests.
The guidelines state that when determining the number of hours of homework per week or per day, teachers should take into account reading course material, studying and practicing skills like rehearsing a musical instrument. Another factor to take into consideration is when long-term projects have been assigned with daily homework, teachers should include the expected hours it will take their students to complete the projects when assigning additional work.
Walker recognizes it may be challenging for teachers to estimate how long a homework assignment will take each of their students.
“Some kids take more time to do homework, ‘So how do you know?’ ” she said.
The elementary grading and reporting policy also underwent changes. Policy 8010, previously covering pre-kindergarten to eighth grade, now stops at the end of fifth grade, or elementary school.
An update to the policy includes how elementary school teachers will report on individual students’ learning behaviors.
As part of each student’s report card, under each class — for example, language arts, mathematics, science, art, music, etc. — teachers will evaluate the students on five learning behaviors. The learning behaviors being evaluated are interpersonal skills, responsibility, perseverance, collaboration and initiative.
‘Knowledge and skills’ Additionally, the academic part of the report card will be evaluated on standards instead of what is now being reported “demonstrates knowledge and skills.”
“Standards-based instruction reporting is centered around understanding what a child is supposed to be able to do, the standard,” said Ebony Langford-Brown, Howard schools’ executive director of curriculum, instruction and assessment.
“[The process is] reporting to the mastering of that standard instead of math in general.”
For example, second-grade mathematics standards are a student can do addition and subtraction with the value of 100, according to the Maryland College and Career Readiness Standards. In fourth grade, the standard is students can compare two fractions with different numerators or denominators.
Standards-based grading goes deeper into how a student is performing within a certain subject.
In the past while a student may have received a B in a math class, which is considered above passing, the breakdown of the grade would not reflect gaps in certain areas, meaning the student may have been excelling with division and multiplication, but was struggling with fractions, according to John Sangiovanni, the school system’s elementary mathematics coordinator.
Standards-based reporting provides those details.
Amy Reese, the school system’s elementary science coordinator, added, “That B doesn’t really tell the parents anything. It’s an average and a grade, but what does that grade really mean?”
Both policies will take effect July 1, with some updates taking effect immediately for the start of school in September and others being rolled out between this coming academic year and the 2020-21 school year. jnocera@baltsun.com twitter.com/jessmnocera
The school system, she said, set out to create “reasonable boundaries that are flexible” when it comes to homework for middle and high school students.
“Homework has been a challenging concept for us,” Walker said.
Wagner said that when assigning homework, the work needs to be intentional and important to either prepare for a lesson or master skills learned in class.
“The board asked for us to take a more active stance on [what] homework did permit and [what it] doesn’t permit,” Walker said.
She added the school system would like to see the bulk of homework be assigned and completed during the week to give students a break on weekends to explore other passions and interests.
The guidelines state that when determining the number of hours of homework per week or per day, teachers should take into account reading course material, studying and practicing skills like rehearsing a musical instrument. Another factor to take into consideration is when long-term projects have been assigned with daily homework, teachers should include the expected hours it will take their students to complete the projects when assigning additional work.
Walker recognizes it may be challenging for teachers to estimate how long a homework assignment will take each of their students.
“Some kids take more time to do homework, ‘So how do you know?’ ” she said.
The elementary grading and reporting policy also underwent changes. Policy 8010, previously covering pre-kindergarten to eighth grade, now stops at the end of fifth grade, or elementary school.
An update to the policy includes how elementary school teachers will report on individual students’ learning behaviors.
As part of each student’s report card, under each class — for example, language arts, mathematics, science, art, music, etc. — teachers will evaluate the students on five learning behaviors. The learning behaviors being evaluated are interpersonal skills, responsibility, perseverance, collaboration and initiative.
‘Knowledge and skills’ Additionally, the academic part of the report card will be evaluated on standards instead of what is now being reported “demonstrates knowledge and skills.”
“Standards-based instruction reporting is centered around understanding what a child is supposed to be able to do, the standard,” said Ebony Langford-Brown, Howard schools’ executive director of curriculum, instruction and assessment.
“[The process is] reporting to the mastering of that standard instead of math in general.”
For example, second-grade mathematics standards are a student can do addition and subtraction with the value of 100, according to the Maryland College and Career Readiness Standards. In fourth grade, the standard is students can compare two fractions with different numerators or denominators.
Standards-based grading goes deeper into how a student is performing within a certain subject.
In the past while a student may have received a B in a math class, which is considered above passing, the breakdown of the grade would not reflect gaps in certain areas, meaning the student may have been excelling with division and multiplication, but was struggling with fractions, according to John Sangiovanni, the school system’s elementary mathematics coordinator.
Standards-based reporting provides those details.
Amy Reese, the school system’s elementary science coordinator, added, “That B doesn’t really tell the parents anything. It’s an average and a grade, but what does that grade really mean?”
Both policies will take effect July 1, with some updates taking effect immediately for the start of school in September and others being rolled out between this coming academic year and the 2020-21 school year. jnocera@baltsun.com twitter.com/jessmnocera
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