District preparing to distribute report cards on schools

A large stack of report cards is locked securely away by the Cherokee County School District waiting to be sent to parents.

The report cards will not give parents information on their students' grades. Instead, schools will receive their own report card rating based on how they fared on tests during the past school year.

The state Department of Education currently plans to release state report cards Jan. 30. Originally slated for release in November, the state postponed the report cards after learning a testing company had provided incorrect information on end-ofcourse results.

End-of-course exams are factors in report card ratings for middle schools and high schools. A change in the end-of-course results can impact a district's overall report card rating.

The state has annually released report cards for schools and districts since 2001. This year's report cards were printed in Pennsylvania and are only two pages long.

"We are just going to put new labels on the report cards and send them out once we receive approval from the state," Cherokee County School District Testing Coordinator Kathy Phillips said. "We probably won't know until some time in January whether any of our school report cards were changed due to the new endof course results. We want to make sure the information is accurate before we send the report cards home."

Each school statewide will receive an absolute and improvement grade on the report cards. Schools will receive a grade of "Excellent," "Good," "Average," "Below Average," or "At Risk."

The absolute rating is based on school test score performance while the improvement grade judges a school's growth in student achievement over a year's time.

The state and federal ratings are required under the state's Education Accountability Act and No Child Left Behind Act. Report card data includes information on class sizes, dollars spent per student, absentee rates for students and teachers, amount of instructional time and the socio-economic status of students' families.