Parents say the Palm Beach County School District's grading system doesn't encourage their kids to succeed. Elementary students no longer receive As, Bs and other letter grades.
One parent from Water's Edge Elementary in West Boca Raton started a petition online. She's asking the district to go back to the traditional letter grade system.
It led to a community meeting at the school Wednesday night between district representatives and parents. Neither side agreed to any changes moving forward.
Amy Campton says her 4th-grade daughter's report card doesn't make sense.
It’s covered in Xs and Os. Instead of As and Bs, the report uses words like “proficient” and “approaching.”
“No one is happy, no one knows how their kid is really doing,” Campton said.
Parents say their children are getting complacent. They used to strive to get an “A.” But they don’t have the same motivation to get a "proficient" score.
“[My son’s] teachers have told me he does exactly what he has to, the minimum. There is no incentive to do anything than just pass,” explained parent Wayne Hulshof.
The district calls it a standards-based report card. A select few elementary schools started using it in 2010-2011. Every elementary school adopted it by 2014-2015.
The district’s websiteshows the report card is supposed to give a more detailed breakdown of how students progress toward understanding the curriculum standards in each subject area.
Campton’s petition has about 250 signatures in one month. She and other parents said they’re worried about their children when they move on to middle and high schools. Those schools still use letter grades.
“He knows what he has to do basically to get that passing grade. I don’t know whether that translates to an A, B or C,” Hulshof pointed out.
A district spokesperson said the district will review input from parents. At this time, the district has not scheduled any more community meetings to discuss report cards.