Putnam Schools New Report Cards Give Context To Grades

When Putnam County students get their third report card of the year, it will include detailed standardized assessment data in addition to in-class grades.

Putnam County Schools Data and Testing Supervisor Jason Stickler said this offers increased transparency to parents looking for context about a child’s grades. He said parents will be able to see how their child performed on EOC, TCAP, and screener testing.

“Grades in the classroom tell one part of the story, and then an assessment by itself might tell another part,” Stickler said. “Where we really get that good result is where we put them together. Are we doing what we need to in the classroom to perform well on assessments?”

He said the additional data will spark healthy conversation between parents and children as well as between parents and teachers. He said that communication about student performance helps everyone. He said parents with questions about the report’s format or the data it shows are welcome to reach out to schools and teachers for more clarity.

“Being able to place that test history in front of that student and that parent throughout the year, again, will just kind of spark that conversation,” Stickler said. “So that we don’t lose sight of maybe something that we did in the fall of the winter. We can kind of keep that story going throughout the year to give us ideas on where we can improve before we get to the end-of-the-year state assessments.”

Stickler said parents can also use the Power Schools Parent Portal to track the history of their child’s assessment data. He said this paints a more complete picture of the progress a student is making.

“We tried to put as much information as we could just on the one-page progress report,” Stickler said. “We didn’t want to get into multiple pages, so we just have a snapshot of the child’s assessments at the bottom of the progress report.”