An SFUSD report card glossary for parents
Updated
The elementary report card is written in the district's working vocabulary, and most of it is never explained to the family reading it. These are the words that come up, in the order a parent tends to meet them.
On the report card
- Standards-based report card
- A report card that marks each specific skill, or standard, separately instead of giving one grade per subject. SFUSD uses this format from transitional kindergarten through fifth grade.
- Standard
- One line on the card describing a skill the district expects a child to have by the end of the year, in plain language. “Regulates emotions and works with focus” and “Compares and contrasts two or more versions of the same story or topic” are both standards on the grade 2 card. Each one gets its own mark.
- End-of-year standard
- Where the standard says the child should be when the school year ends in late May. Every mark on the card is measured against this fixed point, whichever trimester the card is from.
- Mark
- The 1, 2, 3 or 4 next to a standard. Four means exceeds the end-of-year standard, three meets it, two is approaching it, one is not yet approaching it. There is a full guide to the scale.
- / (not assessed this period)
- The teacher did not assess that standard during this trimester, usually because it had not been taught yet. It is not a low mark and it is not a missing one.
- Trimester (T1, T2, T3)
- SFUSD splits the elementary year into three grading periods, and the card carries a column for each so a family can see the same standard across the year. How the trimesters work has the dates.
- Subject
- A group of standards on the card: Social-Emotional Development, Language Arts, Mathematics, History/Social Studies, Science, Physical Education, Visual and Performing Arts, and Health, plus English Language Development for children learning English and a World Language / Biliteracy Pathway section for children in a language program.
- Language pathway
- An SFUSD program in which part of the day is taught in a language other than English. On the card, Language Arts for these children carries two sets of marks, one for English and one for the pathway language, and some standards are written for both.
- Teacher comment
- Free text from the teacher, usually per trimester. This is often where the most specific information on the card lives, including any expected Star score range.
On the District Assessments report
- District Assessments: Student Results
- The separate one-page report showing Star Reading and Star Math results. A guide to reading it.
- Star Reading, Star Math
- Computer-adaptive tests taken on a screen, up to three times a year. They are separate from anything the classroom teacher marks.
- Assessment window
- When the test was taken: Fall, Winter or Spring. A report printed mid-year shows only the windows that have happened.
- Achievement level
- The Star test's 1 to 4: Exceeds, Meets, Approaching, Not Yet Approaching. A different scale from the report card's 1 to 4, even though the digits match.
- Scaled score
- The Star test's numeric result, such as 881. It sits on one scale across grades, so it can be compared from one window to the next. It is a snapshot of one test on one day.
- Expected range
- The band of scaled scores a teacher considers typical for that grade at that time of year. It is not printed on the assessment report; when it appears, it is in a teacher comment on the report card.
For children learning English
- English Language Development (ELD)
- A section of the report card, with its own standards, for children the district has identified as English learners.
- ELPAC
- California's English Language Proficiency Assessments for California. Results are reported as levels 1 to 4, labelled Beginning stage, Somewhat developed, Moderately developed and Well developed, sometimes split into oral and written language. This is a third 1 to 4 scale and should never be read with report card or Star labels.