WARSAW — Several years ago, Warsaw Community Schools began reporting student progress through standards-based report cards. Initially, the district implemented this method throughout kindergarten classes. In recent years, WCS has moved to standards-based report cards for grades K-4. The purpose of this change was to provide more specific feedback to parents and students about progress on essential standards.

WCS planned on reporting progress on student achievement with standards-based report cards in fifth grade beginning in the 2019-20 school year. However, Indiana recently announced a change in the way they will be assessing students. This spring, students will no longer take the ISTEP+ test. Instead, a new test will be implemented called ILEARN.

This change requires WCS to realign its essential standards to match the test. Due to this, WCS will not be moving standards-based report cards to the fifth-grade level next year. In the future, WCS still hopes to move to standards-based report cards for all students grades K-6, however due to recent changes in education at the state level, the district has postponed this plan for the time being.

In the meantime, a task force will be working on aligning WCS essential standards to the new exam, creating guidelines for staff in regards to standards-based grading and ensuring that our power standards are effectively communicated to parents and students.

Our mission is to inspire and equip all students to continuously acquire and apply knowledge and skills while pursuing their dreams and enriching the lives of others. WCS hopes more effectively reporting student progress through standards-based grades will move the district closer to the accomplishment of our mission.