Report Cards in Grades 4 -5

Minnetonka elementary schools report student achievement using a standards-based 4-point elementary report card for reading, math and science in the 4th and 5th grade. 

The 4-point rubric focuses on student growth or learning trends over time. It places more emphasis on the most recent assessment as opposed to earlier assessments, when a new concept is being introduced.

The online gradebook is open to parents through Skyward Family Access and is designed to communicate a child’s achievement of essential benchmarks in the area of reading, math and science. Benchmarks specify what children are expected to learn and be able to do at each grade level. Student scores reflect how well children are achieving these skills.

Teachers use a 4-point standards-based rubric when assessing performance on a given benchmark. The rubric is shown below. Learning progresses from the simplest concepts at the bottom of the rubric to more complex concepts at the top of the rubric.

Report cards area issued twice a year in January and June.  Report cards are one way teachers report student progress to parents.  Weekly classroom newsletters, classroom assignments, emails, NWEA assessments and parent-teacher conferences all provide open and frequent communication about what children are learning and how they are progressing. Report cards should be viewed as a historical snapshot of student achievement, but with all the other ways teachers communicate about student learning, Report Cards should not provide any "new" information for parents.

To read this rubric, begin at the bottom.  A score of zero assumes no learning. As learning progresses from the simplest concepts at the bottom of the rubric and to more complex concepts at the top of the rubric scale, the student's score will increase. Notice that a 3.0 score represents what we expect children to know from what was explicitly taught.  A score above 3.0 reflects learning which exceeds expectations; using inferences and applications that go beyond what was explicitly taught.