The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
This week, thousands of parents across Manitoba will receive a new, plain language provincial report card as school breaks for the summer. 'The new report card is a communication tool that gives parents consistent, clear information about how well their children are learning, what steps students can take to improve and what parents can do to help,' said Education Minister Nancy Allan. There are three report card formats _ one for grades 1 to 6, one for grades 7 and 8 and one for grades 9 to 12. In addition to information about academic achievement, the new report card features information about students' learning behaviours, so parents can understand their children's effort and attitude in class. The new high school report card (grades 9 to 12) contains a completion of requirements for graduation chart, showing the student's progress toward graduation. In developing the new report card, the province consulted broadly with education partners and formed an oversight committee comprised of the Manitoba Association of Parent Councils, Manitoba School Boards Association, Manitoba Association of School Board Officials, Manitoba Teachers' Society and Manitoba Association of School Superintendents. After piloting the new report card during the 2011-12 school year, the province gave school divisions the option of implementing it in 2012-13. Divisions overwhelmingly embraced the new report card with 485 schools in 35 school divisions introducing it, Allan said, adding implementation of the new report card is mandatory in all public schools starting in September. Allan also unveiled new multilingual parent brochures to help parents understand how to get the most of out the new report cards. The brochures are available in 16 languages: English, French, Korean, Amharic, Arabic, Chinese, Cree, German, Ojibway, Punjabi, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Tigrinya and Vietnamese. Meanwhile, the province recently announced that Manitoba's high school graduation rate for June 2012 has increased to 84.1 per cent, an 18 per cent increase since 2002. For more information about the new provincial report card, go to www.edu.gov.mb.ca /k12/assess/ report_cards/index. html. _ Compiled from a Government of Manitoba news release
