How the SFUSD elementary report card works across three trimesters

The grading periods follow the district's academic calendar. These are the dates Toward June files marks under; the calendar published by SFUSD is the authority if the two ever differ, and report cards are typically sent home a week or two after a trimester closes.

The first card comes home in November, after about eleven weeks of school. The second arrives in late February. The third, in June, is the one every mark has been pointing at all year, because each mark describes progress toward the end-of-year standard.

That is why the November card can look worse than it is. A 2 in the first trimester says the child is approaching a standard the district expects them to meet seven months later. The marks guide goes through the scale in the district's own words.

Each standard on the card is one row with a T1, T2 and T3 column. When the second card arrives, the first trimester's mark is still printed beside the new one. That is useful, and it invites a mistake: reading the row as a line.

• A slash in an early column means the standard was not assessed that trimester, usually because it had not been taught yet. Many rows start with one.
• A 2 followed by a 3 is what the scale is designed to show: the child moved toward the end-of-year standard as the year went on.
• A 3 followed by a 2 is two observations by a teacher, on different evidence, months apart. It is not a decline. Ask the teacher what they saw; do not draw a trendline.

The card is four pages. Page one carries the child's details, the school and teacher, the legend explaining the 1 to 4 scale, and space for teacher comments. The standards and marks fill the middle pages, grouped by subject.

The subjects, in the order they appear on most cards:

• Social-Emotional Development
• Language Arts
• Mathematics
• History/Social Studies
• Science
• Physical Education
• Visual and Performing Arts
• English Language Development, for children identified as English learners
• Health, and a World Language / Biliteracy Pathway section where they apply

Each standard is written as a plain sentence about what the child does. On the grade 2 card, Social-Emotional Development includes “Works/plays collaboratively with others” and “Approaches challenges as learning opportunities”; Language Arts includes “Recounts stories and identifies the central message.” The district publishes a sample card for every grade at sfusd.edu/ReportCards.

Children in a Spanish or Cantonese/Mandarin pathway receive a version of the card with an extra set of columns. Language Arts is marked twice, once for English and once for the pathway language, and some standards are written for both: “Recounts stories and identifies the central message … in Chinese with support.” The two tracks are separate marks against separate expectations, and a 2 in one alongside a 3 in the other is common.

Children the district has identified as English learners have an English Language Development section with its own standards, marked on the same 1 to 4 scale as the rest of the card. They may also bring home ELPAC results, California's English proficiency assessment, which uses its own four levels from Beginning stage to Well developed. Those levels are a different scale and should not be read with report card labels. The glossary keeps the three 1 to 4 scales apart.

The trimester columns only work if the earlier card is still to hand. Toward June files each card under its trimester so the same standard can be read across a year, and across years, with the district's wording beside every mark. You review every mark before it is saved; nothing is filed on a machine's reading alone.