School Report Cards Discussed

Jay Barrett/KMXT

It’s not just students that receive report cards – entire schools can get them too. At their last meeting, the Kodiak school board was updated by Ron Bryant about the Report Cards to the Public.

Bryant is the director of school and student services; he used Peterson Elementary, a recently-named “Blue Ribbon School,” in his example to the board.

“This is usually written by the administrator of the school, the principal of the school, just giving highlights and details on how their school performs during the year. Just hitting some highlights from Peterson Elementary, you can easily see as to why it’s the high-performing school that it is,” he said. “During the course of the year they have emphasis on positive behavior support framework which is the basis of their school. When you walk into the school in the hallways you’ll see posters telling kids what the school’s expectations are, and the students strive hard to meet those expectations.”

Bryant said the schools are also rated on three areas, such as attendance, academic achievement, and progress of the students in learning.

“In this case, how many of the students made progress in their SBA scores from the previous year to this year,” Bryant said. “And in her case, or in Peterson’s case, 100 percent of the students made progress. All of her students showed improvement from the previous SBA to this year’s.”

Superintendent Stewart McDonald interjected that the state requires significantly better performance year-over-year to attain such a ranking.

“They actually have to have significant improvement. They break it down to rankings on this graph and chart, and they actually have to jump to that next level to show that progress,” McDonald said. “In other words, they can’t just get a few extra points.”

Teachers, of course, have the largest part to play in student learning progress, and in Peterson’s case, according to Bryant, the staff is top-notch.

“In that particular school, 13 bachelors, 10 masters. We don’t have any education specialist degrees or doctorates earned, but 88 percent of the cases taught are taught by ‘highly qualified’ teachers.”

“Highly qualified” is a rating given teachers who have demonstrated the mastery of a subject. He said the remaining classes that did not show a teacher was ‘highly-qualified’ likely stems from new classes students have requested. He said core subject classes all have teachers who are highly qualified.