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Schools

Kindergarten Report Cards Revised

New common core state standards were brought to Massachusetts and as such, the schools' curriculum and assessments had to be updated.

Parents of kindergarten students in Foxborough schools will see a newer kind of report card measuring their child's progress in mathematics starting in February. 

Alison Mello, kindergarten - eighth-grade math and science director, along with Assistant Superintendent Dr. Amy Berdos, presented the revised report card to the Foxborough School Committee Monday night. Last January, the new common core state standards were brought to Massachusetts and as such, Berdos said, the schools' curriculum and assessments had to be updated.

"The standards are what students need to be able to know and do, and it's what guides our instructions," Berdos said. "The report card is our way of communicating with parents to let them know how their student is doing in relation to those standards."

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The new math standards are more explicit in measuring a student's progress. On the older report card, a student's ability to "count objects carefully," was assessed. Whereas, according to the new math standards, students need to be able to "count forward beginning at any number…tell the quantity of a set regardless of arrangement/order…(and) composes and decomposes numbers into tens and ones and represents groups."

"We looked at what we were currently reporting on report cards and where we needed to be, and there was an immediate need to make some changes," Mello said. Mello met with the district's kindergarten teachers last summer to assess the report card and to address the changes needed. Though the entire report card will be revised this summer, the math portion needed immediate attention, she said.

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"This allows them to report very clearly to parents where their child is in relation to the core standards," Mello said. 

However, one concern of the teachers' was that the language on the report card might not be familiar. Therefore, at their suggestion, a newsletter will be sent out monthly, starting with February's report card, highlighting one of the new core standards and how parents can work with their child at home to enhance their skills. The revised report card also breaks mathematics learning into two parts: numeracy, and geometry and measurement. Students will be assessed on 17 explicit standards, versus the previous 11.

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