POTTSTOWN PA – How well does your Pottsgrove School District elementary student read, in comparison to his or her grade level? If parents want to know, they’ve got to ask.
Letters from district Director of Education and Assessment Todd Davies are being circulated this week to parents of Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School, according to Principal Ruth Fisher, which announce that reading assessments are now complete for all children from kindergarten through fifth grade. The assessments, a measurement of progress, are conducted three times a year.
Apparently, though, it’s expensive to also send home with each student a printed report bearing their results. So as a cost-saving measure, Fisher explained in a Wednesday (Jan. 25, 2012) e-mail, “we are asking parents who desire this information … to please contact your child’s reading specialist.”
At Lower, the specialist for kindergarten and first grade is Karen Wolfe, whose e-mail address is here; second and third, Maura Lundstrum, here; and fourth and fifth, Rebecca Hutchins, here. Parents without computer or e-mail access can also call their child’s reading specialist at 610-323-6510, Ext. 4041, and leave a message; calls will be returned, Fisher promised.
Although they are not mentioned, assessments presumably have been conducted at West Pottsgrove and Ringing Rocks elementaries as well. Parents interested in knowing the results from students at those schools should contact reading specialists there.
“Remember to keep reading with and to your child,” Fisher reminded parents. “Regardless of age, even adults enjoy being read to and being able to visualize the setting, characters and make predictions,” she noted.
Maybe instead of circulating letters home to parents about not sending the reading results, they should just send the reading results!!!! Really? You can afford to send a letter home but you can’t send actual USEFUL information? What is wrong with you people?????
April, the letters about the results, I suspect, can be cheaply duplicated. Individual reports must be printed individually. I’m willing to bet there’s a huge difference in costs there. And, sad to say, some parents who read the letters may decide – for whatever reason – they don’t need to know how well (or not) their kids did. Individual reports might then be money wasted.
Excellent comment; thanks for making it!
Joe Zlomek, Managing Editor
Educating our children is a partnership. These tests are tools to be used by educators and parents to evaluate their charges and determine the course of action to be taken to produce a better outcome. Sharing that information is vital. Perhaps you go back to the old ways and have the children bring home the results and return a receipt to the school so that teachers and administrators know they are keeping people informed as to what is going on.
Anything short of sharing and using the information which costs money and time to obtain is negating the purpose of doing the testing in the first place …
If it’s ok to do the testing expending time, energy and money, then it reasonable to finish the job and utilize and share the results …
Ed, plenty of others have expressed exactly those sentiments to me today, here and by e-mail. Thanks for weighing in as well!
I am happy to see the school taking these cost saving measures and I would welcome their use of technology. Pottsgrove Middle School posts all grades and information on the parent portal, making it easy for parents to review their child’s progress and communicate with teachers. I just wonder why this practice isn’t uniform throughout the school district?
Christine, the parent portal is available to all K-12 parents, but you’re also correct in that grades and scores are available only for the middle and high school. Here’s the dialog from the district website:
“This portal gives parents in grades K-12 access to enter their Emergency Form information online as well as to view current attendance data. In our Middle School and High School parents are also able to see their children’s grades.”
The entire article on district technology is found here:
http://www.pgsd.org/District/DistrictDepartments/Technology/tabid/179/Default.aspx
Obviously, it does not answer your question: why is grade information limited to the middle and high school families? I’ll try and find that out from Technology Director Michael Wagman.
I’ve notice that your business address is in Limerick. Given your familiarity with the portal, I assume you live within or have a child within the district. Thanks for reading The Post, and offering your insight!
Joe Zlomek, Managing Editor
Thank you for the information, Joe. Yes, my business address is Limerick but I live within the district. I simply wanted to point out that the technology is there to share test scores and possibly save on printing but it is not yet fully utilized at that level. I personally see many areas where the elementary school can improve communication electronically and I would hope to see improvements over time. As a parent, I would welcome the use of parent portal to improve communication and save funds on excessive printing.
Christine, an excellent point.