FCPS Presents New Progress Reports at Hayfield Secondary

Wednesday night at Hayfield, parents of children in county elementary schools had a chance to see the new progress reports that teachers will start using next year.

The reports, available here (PDF), divide subjects like language arts and social studies into several benchmarks. A student's progression in social studies, for example, is monitored by factors like how well the student "explains how the people and events of the past have influenced the present" and "reads maps and understands the impact of geography on culture." 

The individual standards are then tied to that curriculum. Third-grade students currently study ancient Greece and Egypt, so their map reading abilities are judged in part on their ability to find those areas on a map. Sixth-grade students studying Virginia, on the other hand, would need to identify parts of Virginia on a map. 

What do you think of the new system? Will it help students achieve?

The progress reports are currently being tested at ten elementary schools in the county. According to Marty Marinoff, the principal of Reston's Aldrin Elementary, the new progress reports encourage teachers to reinforce concepts they have already taught in class.

"The accountability level has gone up for all of us," Marinoff said. Marinoff wished that the progress reports had been availalbe when he was a teacher, but he stressed that the adjustments will still need to be made to the reports when all FCPS elementary schools adopt them in the fall.

"It's not going to be perfect next year," he said. "It will be a transition."

Both Marinoff and Judy Heard, the project manager for the new reports, emphasized that the standards, which will be judged on a scale of 1 to 4, are measures of a child's progress, not grades.

"The standards might be graded differently, even within the same class," Heard said.