Report card time can be stressful for students and parents, but Leflore County principals say parents will handle it better if they keep up with their children's progress on an ongoing basis.
The year's first report cards came out last week.
Annie Johnson, principal of East Elementary, said parents must get involved earlier than the end of each grading period. "We would like for them to be responsive before the report card comes out," she said.
Charles Ollie, principal of Leflore County High School, said parents can do this a number of ways.
Many teachers send course syllabi or class requirements home, and parents should look at those, he said. If they have questions, they can set up an appointment.
Parents also should look at their children's progress reports, which are given five weeks into each grading period. If a student is doing well, the report can serve as a source of encouragement. If not, parents might need to get more involved, he said.
"For many students, it works well," he said. "If they know they are not meeting the standards or they are falling short, it's a wake-up call."
The district also has days desiganted for parents to pick up report cards. "We try to publish - and this year more so than probably in past years - when report cards will go out," he said.
Once the cards are sent out, if a parent doesn't understand how a grade was figured, he or she may make an appointment for a conference with the teacher.
Ollie said not as many parents take advantage of these conferences as he would like. Some wait until too late, and "toward the end of the school year is highly inappropriate for checking on a student's final grade," he said.
If a parent still has questions after conferring with a teacher, then the principal can intervene and they can address their issues together, Ollie added.
No parent wants a child to fail, but if the student doesn't meet obligations, failure is possible, he said.
"I always welcome the opportunity to meet with parents to discuss this very issue," he said, "so that they will have peace of mind and will know exactly what is required of the child for passing."
The LCHS student handbook also has useful basic information about grades. "Sometimes, I think, parents may not fully understand the ramifications of how grades are determined," Ollie said.
The thresholds for A's, B's and so on vary from district to district and from high school to college, but they are spelled out clearly in the handbook. The book also specifies that no one grade counts more than 25 percent of a final course grade.
Robert Coleman, principal of T.Y. Fleming Elementary, said the five-week progress report should serve as a "road map," indicating whether a child is on the right path. If a student isn't doing well, "there's no use in asking a child, because they're the one with the low grades," he said.
Also, parents often look just at a number grade and don't ask what its underlying causes are, Coleman said. For example, a parent might just see a number of 85 or above, be satisfied and not ask any more questions or contact the school. However, in many cases, "as soon as they see something that's an F or a D, they fly off the handle," he said.
He stressed that report cards illustrate what a child knows, not what he or she doesn't know. Parents should understand that a report card represents a level of performance and keep up with the five-week reports, because coming in after nine weeks is too late, he said.
Many factors can go into a low grade, such as late assignments or insufficient homework. Parents should focus on those, and if they have questions they can contact the school or sit in on a class, Coleman said. "The teachers are not intimidated because parents are in class," he said.
Johnson said parents are welcome to observe classes at East, although not many do. They just need to come by the principal's office and obtain a pass, and they may do that the same day if needed.
If they want to confer with a teacher, they must schedule those meetings during the teacher's planning period.
Parents generally come into conferences with open minds, Johnson said.
