Dear Families,

Welcome to the world of report cards. It is a world bound to spark any anxiety you might have as a parent of a school-aged child. So, first, I would ask you not to be anxious about these “grades”.  It is very difficult to assign grades to children in elementary school. It is extremely difficult to assign a grade to a Kindergartener because so much of what we have done this first 9 weeks is to figure out how to be together as a community of learners. That work is not reflected on these report cards. That kind of growth is not reflected here. Your child’s performance on state-mandated academic tasks is reflected here.  

The team of Kindergarten teachers talked a lot about what to use to assign grades. For example, this is what we came up with for a portion of the math grade, with slightly modified expectations from our team for the first 9 weeks:

• counting to 30 (state says 100)

• counting over decades (like from 28-32)

• counting by 10s

• counting 5 objects

• writing the digits 0-5

Really the “grades” are a reflection of me as their teacher because it’s my job to get everyone where they’re supposed to be according to the state. So, I will strive to get our whole classroom family to at least a 3 by the end of the year.  

As always, feel free to contact me with questions, and as always, appreciate your children! They work so hard every day and have shown great growth in many areas that are not evident on these pieces of paper.