The Hawaii Department of Education implemented a standards-based reporting to parents and students. These reports provide a summary of a student’s progress toward the achievement of standards. The reports serve as only one component of a comprehensive communication system between school and home. Other elements of such a system include homework assignments, notes, phone calls, conferences, student projects, portfolios, open house, newsletters, school web-pages, etc.
Teachers collect evidence of student achievement throughout the semester to support their evaluation. In order to assess student progress toward the achievement of standards, teachers also use various assessment tools, e.g., running records, observations, checklists, student work samples.
The Status Report is designed to give parents and students an indication of the student’s progress toward achieving the standards and what can be done to improve performance. The Status Report does not indicate the attainment of the standards; rather it provides a projection of the student’s rate of progress toward achieving the standards. A year end grade is given based on the student’s achievement of the standards in the year. The components of the Status Reports are: •Attendance •General Learner Outcomes (GLOs) •Content Areas •Comments (teacher, student, and parent)
The Status Report is distributed at the end of each quarter. The first quarter status report is usually given during the parent teacher conferences.