New report cards make parents feel like 'guinea pigs'

Several parents in the Fredericton area say they're not pleased with the pilot project introduced for grading in the Anglophone West School District.

Many of them say they found their children's first report cards of the year confusing.

Instead of letter grades or percentages, their children are now assessed with Ps for progressing, PWs for Progressing Well and PWD for Progressing with Difficulty.

Filip Vanicek said he feels his children are being used as "guinea pigs" for a marking system that has not been proven to work.

"It's just dumbing down the system, for no good reason," he said.

Vanicek said it's though people in an "ivory tower" decided to suddenly experiment with marking systems that have been established for more than 50 years, for no other reason than deciding to try something new.

“How are our kids expected to be equipped with dealing in a competitive world of information technology, in a world that bases all success in banking, science, engineering and medicine on scores, scoring and tabulations when in this province we refuse to even grade them?"

Vanicek said the experience reminds him of the experiment the former Shawn Graham government tried with the French immersion program when it replaced early immersion with a Grade 5 entry point.

Angry parents took the provincial government to court over that idea and won. Eventually the provincial government compromised and settled on a Grade 3 entry point.

'It's just ridiculous'

Kim Leblanc is another parent who said she feels the new grading system was introduced with very little consultation and very little justification. 

She has a son in Grade 8 and a son in Grade 10.

"It's just ridiculous," Leblanc said.

She sits on the Parent School Committee for Devon Middle School and the Parent School Support Committee for Leo Hayes High School.

Leblanc said her most recent PSSC meeting turned into a complaint session about the new grading system.

The pilot project that started this year is prompting an intense debate over whether the traditional system of marks such as 75 per cent is a better reflection of students’ achievement.

Ann Sherman, the dean of the faculty of education at the University of New Brunswick, said on Wednesday the new report cards are better at showing the progress of students.

Under the new system, students will receive progress reports in early November and early April, which will indicate if the child is Progressing Well, Progressing or Progressing with Difficulty. The report is then intended to focus the discussion during parent-teacher interviews.

A separate achievement report will be distributed in early February and the end of June. These reports will have a four-point scale to indicate the student’s performance.

In this scale, a 4 indicates a student is exceeding learning goals, meanwhile a 1 indicates a student is working below the learning goals.

Previously, middle school students received a numerical mark. Elementary and primary students had report cards noting whether performance was superior, appropriate or needed improvement, for example.

In a two-page document shared with parents, the Anglophone West School District said the pilot project affects all students from kindergarten to Grade 8 in the district and it will be implemented in all other Anglophone school in the next two years.