With the timing of our recent move the girls have had a strange time warp happen. They started school on August 11th in California, nearly one full month before their Michigan counterparts.
Then they started school again in Michigan, merely 9 days into the Michigan school year. This in essence will be the longest school year EVER for them. They actually will get 45 more days instruction than most other school aged children.
To compound the time warp, each child is being retaught things they learned last year in school. Michigan curriculum is nearly 10 months behind California curriculum. Although, Michigan curriculum is presenting somewhat of a challenge because they do not teach traditional math in the way that the girls learned things. Also, there are other elements of the school day here in Michigan that were not included in California because of state education budget cuts. So, while they are advanced in some areas they are behind in others and there are gaps.
Yesterday, we had parent-teacher conferences. Now, after being in school for 3 full months and not having received even a progress report yet I expected some sort of actual report card with grades.
I was shocked to see what I did get instead was a marking period 1 conference report. No grades at all. Just a report listing life skills and effort rated 1-4 (with 4 being end of year standards) and a brief summary of the teacher's perspective of the student.
Holy cow people! I need grades. I need something to tell me more than I already know. I need to know what the bottom line is here. I can see the weekly test scores but I don't know how all those scores are going to flush out a grade. I don't like shocking report cards at the mid year break that puts us into a tailspin. I need to know now!
Apparently, actual grades only come home once in the school year....in January!
I guess I need a longer adjustment period myself. But, in my view the 1.5 hours I spent last night for 40 minutes worth of conferences with 3 teachers talking about 3 completely different girls who learn in completely different ways was not very informative at all!
And, I found out there is no honor roll system. What?! How am I supossed to motivate these girls if there's no way to reward them through the education system. No student of the month, no character counts, no honor roll? I guess they figure all children are equal but sometimes those little assemblies really motivate the girls to achieve a little bit more.
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Was California on quarters? Here in our district, we are on trimesters. Report cards (with grades) go home at: end of November, Beginning of March, and Middle of June.
We also don't have honor roll/student of the month, etc at our schools. But since the Oregon budget is one of the worst and education has taken so many hits, those things are what have gone b/c we don't have the people/resources to do it when so much else has all been cut too.
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