Grading and Reporting (update 8/2/2006)

Elementary Schools: This fall the 17 schools which piloted the grades 1 & 2 electronic report card, along with two of the four new ES, will continue with the grades 1 & 2 electronic report card and also use the grade 3 tools being developed (grade 3 is not electronic yet.) The grade 3 tools have not yet been given to the 19 schools, but will be provided before the start of the 06-07 school year. Tools refers to the content standards schools will use to evaluate student achievement. These 19 schools will field test the electronic grade 3 report card in 07-08.

All other ES, in grades 1 & 2, will be using standards based tools to generate a traditional report card in 06-07. This means that they will be using all the documents and standards based categories that the pilot schools used last year, but not in an electronic format. This is to get them ready for full implementation of the electronic grades 1 & 2 report card in 07-08. ES will use Pinnacle in 07-08 in grades 1 & 2.

In 08-09, all ES might implement the full grade 3 electronic report card. MCPS is uncertain whether the grade 3 report card will be fully ready at that time, specifically whether there will be enough time to incorporate everything they will learn during the 07-08 field test by fall 2008. MCPS still does not know if grade 3 will continue with an A, B, C grading system or switch to a different code.

Secondary Schools: attached is a list of secondary schools which will be using Pinnacle and Edline in 06-07. Edline has been renamed “OARS” which stands for Online Achievement Reporting System. Principals decided whether to implement Pinnacle this year or wait until 07-08. If a school is implementing Pinnacle and OARS, then their teachers should get training before school begins. The office of Professional Development has conducted core training for these schools (core means building administrators, staff development teachers, reading specialists, and literacy coaches.) These staff will conduct in school training for teachers. Staff in the remaining schools will attend training before fall 2007. The pinnacle software has been customized to automatically include features of the MCPS grading system, such as the procedures to be followed on rounding up grades, not allowing homework for practice to be counted as more than 10% of a grade, and the 50% floor on attempted work.

The guidelines on reteach/reassessment and homework are to be re-released to all secondary schools based on the final refinements which came out of the One Text committee. MCPS has also put together a document called the “Look Fors”. This is a list of items that parents and others should observe in their child’s school if the school is properly following procedures. The Office of School Performance (OSP) will make these “look fors” part of their regular monitoring process.

MCPS will be working on developing an interim regulation for the grading and reporting policy in the fall. To date it has been guided by something called the operational framework. One text has been disbanded, but GRIT (Grading and Reporting Implementation Team) continues.

Schools Implementing Edline/Pinnacle

August 2006

	High Schools	Middle Schools
1	Seneca Valley	Argyle
2	Clarksburg	Robert Frost
3	Wheaton	Roberto Clemente
4	Gaithersburg	Kingsview
5	Damascus	Shady Grove
6	Einstein	Martin Luther King Jr.
7	Watkins Mill	William H. Farquhar
8	Walter Johnson	North Bethesda
9	Wootton	Thomas W. Pyle
10	Quince Orchard	Cabin John
11	Northwood	White Oak
12	Bethesda-Chevy Chase	Silver Spring International
13	Rockville	Forest Oak
14	Northwest	Julius West
15	Poolesville	Sligo
16	Hubert Blake	A Mario Loiederman
17	Robert F. Kennedy	Herbert Hoover
18	Richard Montgomery	Rosa Parks
19	Col. Zadok Magruder	Neelsville
20	Paint Branch	Parkland
21	Winston Churchill	Montgomery Village
22	Sherwood	Benjamin Banneker
23		Briggs Chaney
24		Francis Scott Key
25		Takoma Park
26		Gaithersburg
27	RICA
28	Mark Twain