LAS VIRGENES TESTS NEW REPORT CARDS.

Byline: Amy Raisin Staff Writer

The Las Virgenes Unified School District is testing the waters of change, striving to keep parents better informed about their children's academic progress with a new report card system.

On the cards, a new system of subcategories that uses numbers joins the traditional letter-grade evaluation to provide a more detailed explanation of performance by each child in kindergarten through fifth grade.

``It gives more information to parents than a regular report card,'' said Brent Noyes, principal at Willow Elementary in Agoura Hills. ``As in math, rather than giving just one overall grade, it has subareas explaining, say, how well a first-grader is counting to 100 by ones.''

Sixty-eight percent of the 270 teachers in kindergarten through fifth- grade have volunteered to test the new system at the eight elementary schools, said Madge Lamb, director of curriculum and instruction for the district.

Officials hope to have the new report cards used districtwide in the next school year, which will start in the fall.

``We have been aligning our curriculum to fit the state content standards in English-language arts and mathematics, to specify what our children should know and be able to do,'' Lamb said. ``The progress report was the missing link.''

While report cards in the new system look similar to the old ones, the key differences are in the new subareas. For example, a fifth-grader receives an overall letter grade for reading, but below that grade are rankings by number in subareas such as ``reads with fluency and expression,`` ``comprehends at a literal level'' and ``comprehends at critical levels.'' In a subarea, 4 is the highest ranking.

The first progress reports went home in mid-November in the test of the new system, and most parents liked the change, giving them much more specific information about their child's progress, school officials said.

Julie Bluestein, mother of a fifth-grader at Willow Elementary and co-president of its Parent-Faculty Association, said she noticed a dramatic difference.

``I was very impressed. The old report cards for third, fourth and fifth grades all came home looking the same,'' Bluestein said. ``But the things taught between third and fifth grades are very different. It was ludicrous.''

Bluestein said the math grading is very detailed now, with subareas on a student's sense of whole numbers, fractions, decimals and geometry.

``I can't imagine having very many questions about where your children stand with the new (report cards),'' she said. ``These are very concrete. It's like night and day.''

So far only the English language arts and mathematics portions of the report cards have been revised.

Teachers got drafts of the proposed report cards Aug. 30 and suggested some revisions that were adopted. Teachers participating in the trial of the new report cards began using the new system in September.

``It's kind of hard (on teachers) because you're doing a lot of assessment,'' Noyes said. ``It really is more definitive, based on performance vs. being subjective, but it's just getting used to a different format. I think the teachers like this kind of reporting.''

Lamb said the pilot program is being reviewed and, if parents and teachers continue to find the new report cards more definitive, the revised progress reports will be used districtwide in in the 2000-2001 school year.