Hmmm. I still haven’t quite figured out how to read these report cards. They used to do “S” and “N” in my day. When they carved report cards in stone, remember? S was for Satisfactory and N was for… Non. I would always ALWAYS get an N in self control. Then in the notes they would write “…blah blah…lacks self control”. It sounds like I peed myself all day or something. Wait, actually in 2nd grade I DID pee myself. But that was because Mrs. Mazafarrow would not let me get UP when I said I had to PEE. And Yes I still remember your name. Are you dead? (Okay I didn’t mean that to be mean. Mean that meanly. Whatever. That’s just a quote from the Smurfs movie. And its funny.)
So, where was I. Well now I have to pee. Sigh. Okay…so the report cards now have 17 different ways you can be graded. In 2nd grade mind you. This is in CT of course. Not sure if we’re the only weird ones out there, or if this is standard all around. On this report card, for basic things like art, gym, music, math, reading, social skills, etc, you will see “grades” such as these:
PreE – Pre-Emergent
Em – Emergent
Dev – Developing
Beg – Beginning
Tran – Transitional
EarlyFl – Early Fluent
Fl – Fluent
M – Meets benchmark
P – Partially meets
NY – Not yet meeting
V – Very good
S – Satisfactory
N – Needs improvement
4 – Meets grade level independently
3 – Meets grade level with guidance
2 – Progressing towards meeting grade level standard with guidance and wtf
1 – Not yet able to produce required grade level work with or without guidance WTFFF
OH, and N/A – Not assessed at this time.
SO, after I flip back and forth like 800 times from the front of the card where the grades are to the back of the card where the excel spreadsheet of letters, numbers and phrases are housed, and with multiple papercuts and lots of swears (cuz I swear a lot) I can then just begin to see that Jack is doing ok. Sheesh.
He did go down in one or two things from the first report card to the second. I’m not sure how far down he went because the flipping back and forth was at a frenzy at that point. So I just asked him to tell me about it.
me: Hey Jack, how come you have a lower grade on “works neatly” this time. You had a “very good” last time.
Jack: What do I have now?
me: (sigh, flip) Uh, you have an “S”
Jack: What’s that mean?
me: Satisfactory.
Jack: What’s Satisfactory mean?
me: That your work is acceptable and ok.
Jack: (raises an eyebrow) And acceptable is good right?
me: It’s…well…you went down…so last time you had “very good” and …it’s an “S” now… so…
Jack: I think Satisfactory is a good place to be in 2nd grade don’t you?
me: Yeah (I hang my head a little sheepishly) But you were trying much harder maybe at the beginning of the year, so maybe you can try harder for next time?
Jack: My teacher was less cranky at the beginning of the year too. Did ya ever think of that? She said we drove her completely NUTS today.
me: Ah…
Sh*t My 6-Year-Old Says (but he's 18 now) 