Lake Forest committee outlines plan to shift elementary report cards to standards-based format

The Lake Forest Board of Education heard a detailed presentation Thursday about a planned shift from traditional letter-grade report cards to standards-based report cards for elementary grades.

The report card committee told the board the change is intended to give families clearer, more actionable information about what students are learning and where they need support. "The primary goal of this progress report is to communicate with families and students about both the students' progress in demonstrating achievement of the state standards and qualities of a learner for each marking period," the committee said.

Committee members said the report cards will keep cognitive subject areas — English language arts, math, science and social studies — and add limited, clearly defined noncognitive measures such as consideration for others, self-management of behavior and demonstrated best effort. Presenters said the committee pared long lists of behaviors into four concise noncognitive “buckets” so the forms are useful, not overwhelming, for teachers and parents.

Presenters described how the new report card will use anchor standards (for example, literature/informational text and foundational reading skills in ELA) so that report language will be consistent across grade levels while the specific, measurable expectations evolve by grade. In math the committee said it grouped individual standards into clusters — for example measurement and data versus operations and word problems — so parents can see strengths and gaps within a subject rather than a single averaged grade.

The committee also outlined outreach and implementation steps. They plan parent handbooks for ELA and math by grade, short explainer videos accessible via QR codes, and a family support hub on the district curriculum website that links units to learning goals and home support suggestions. The presenters said they will finalize grading practices and how standards are tagged in the grade book, then integrate the report card into Infinite Campus (the district's student information system) to allow teachers to tag assignments to standards and to gray out standards not yet taught in a marking period.

Board members asked about evidence and day-to-day practice. Presenters said lessons already map to standards on the district curriculum site; teachers plan to tag assignments and, where practical, label which standard an assignment addresses so parents can match classroom evidence to the report card entries. The committee also said elementary leadership teams are being tasked to align scope and sequence documents to the new report card so teachers have clear guidance on when and how to grade each standard.

Presenters said policy changes will be needed before full implementation. Policies they identified for revision include IKA (grading and evaluation of students), IKE (promotion, retention and acceleration) and IKD (honor rolls); the committee plans to take proposed revisions first to the policy committee and then for board first and second readings. They also flagged teacher professional development as a major next step.

Board members raised two procedural concerns on Thursday. One board member asked about the role of outside wellness-center providers in training and incident reporting; board staff said they would confirm how those providers will coordinate with administrators and counselors and whether the responsibilities need to be clarified in policy or formal agreements. Another board member asked about display length and readability; presenters said they aim to fit the main report card to one front-and-back page where possible and to use parent handbooks and videos to provide the extra detail.

The presenters gave a target of launching the new report card for the next school year, after finishing final grading practice guidance, parent materials, and Infinite Campus tagging. Superintendent Dr. Lucas, speaking later in the meeting on other business, noted the district calendar and marking periods and reminded the public that "The end of the marking period is March 28," underscoring the timeline for related grading practices.

Board members praised the committee's work and asked that the presentations and parent materials be widely available before a formal launch so families have advance exposure to the change. The committee said it will hold additional meetings, finalize documents with invited parents and administrators, produce videos from the parent handbooks, and return proposed policy revisions to the board for formal consideration.

Concluding the item, teachers who served on the committee said the change aligns with classroom instruction and that they have begun the behind-the-scenes work of tagging curriculum sequences to the new report card standards.