The COVID-19 pandemic may be behind us, but its imprint on our society will be felt for the foreseeable future. That imprint is vast and deep for US schools, which are still challenged with recovering from impacts to student academic gains and achievement while grappling with chronic absenteeism, teacher shortages and burnout, and a rise in mental health and behavioral issues. Added to navigating this new landscape is a change in family engagement — specifically, families’ confidence in understanding their child’s academic progress.
Recently, 50CAN released a parent survey that highlighted that grades are no longer the key factor in understanding their child’s academics, and their overall confidence in grades as a measure of learning is down. During the pandemic, hints of changing grading standards and possible grade inflation rose as an issue, as many parents raised concerns about the accuracy and fairness of their children’s grades, given the disruption of school closures and a shift to remote learning.
But concerns about grades being an accurate measure of learning were an issue long before COVID. In 2023, ACT cited that grade inflation has been on the rise for more than a decade. They added that grade-point averages rose several percentage points from 2010 to 2022, yet there was no significant increase in ACT scores.
This drop in confidence in traditional grades may present a unique opportunity. Significant disruptions, like a pandemic, are chances to evaluate and rethink what “we’ve always done” and give rise to something new or, at the very least, something that better meets the current needs of families. Just as schools update their curriculum, teaching practices, and student assessment approaches, we need to continue to innovate regarding family engagement. COVID-19 fundamentally changed school-home relationships, and today’s digitally-connected families are asking for more information and actionable steps they can take to support learning at home.
Bringing the family into the process
A recent national survey by SchoolStatus shared that today’s families want more frequent communication about student progress and to know how to better support their child in their academics, instead of just getting letter grades once per quarter. The survey found that 69% of families want daily (48%) or weekly (21%) communication on their children’s academic progress, but only 52% currently receive updates at that frequency. This post-COVID era may be that opportunity for school and district leaders to leverage this change of perspective as a tipping point to evolve grades into something more meaningful and actionable for students and families. Here are things to consider:
- Evaluate your district’s approach to understanding student progress. Start by considering how you currently assess and communicate about student achievement and progress. What information makes up a student’s academic profile? What is it measuring and why? What information do students and families need to better support the student’s learning journey? Determine if this information provides a full view or if more evidence of learning is needed. Most importantly, pay close attention to any behavioral data that may be used in academic grades (for example, tardiness, absences, late work, incomplete work, etc). If it is, decouple it from achievement when calculating academic grades. Behaviors can be evaluated and communicated in other ways. However, they say nothing about what that student knows, what subjects they are proficient in or where they still need help academically. Many school districts, including Los Angeles, San Diego and Fort Worth, Texas, have done this successfully.
- Invest in professional development to support teachers in understanding student progress and communicating it to families. It starts with building consensus. Measuring and communicating about academic growth and achievement must be consistent, not idiosyncratically weighed and determined by each teacher. Support your teachers’ abilities to effectively understand and discuss these measures with families by providing the appropriate, relevant professional development. It’s also important to consider involving your full community (families included) in consensus-building and professional development so that across classrooms and schools, everyone is on the same page and leveraging the same language when speaking about student growth and achievement.
- Review the language used about academic achievement, especially hard-to-understand terms. Focus on language and words that are accessible, relevant and lead to deeper conversations about a student’s academic progress. As a school community, determine common terms and how you define them for families. For example, what’s an interim assessment? What does it mean if a student is in the 56th percentile? What does “proficient” mean? How those are defined should be consistent across your school community, even across schools. One great example is from Montana’s Office of Public Instruction, where every term used in their reports provides simple-to-understand definitions that help families better understand the information provided.
- Most importantly, involve students. The biggest stakeholder is the student; involving them early and often in their academic journey is critical. One essential practice is goal setting. It provides a structure for discussing what evidence of learning the teacher is tracking and why, what makes up a student’s grade and provides the student an opportunity to envision what they want to accomplish. Along with goals, consider having student-led conferences where they share their progress with families. It is another reinforcement of building their voice and advocacy for their learning.
One clear thing in this post-COVID era is that millions of US students remain academically behind. Research highlights that families are a critical driver in the recovery effort. Investing in family-school partnerships is a must if we want to see above-and-beyond outcomes for our students, and it starts with a shift in how we track and communicate student achievement.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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