Report cards for Upper Grand District School Board (UGDSB) elementary students will be ready for pick up on Aug. 31, a board official has confirmed.
“They should be all ready to go and parents can drop into the school starting that day and just get them from the office,” UGDSB superintendent of education Gary Slater said in a phone interview.
In mid-June it was announced that elementary students would be receiving “letters of promotion,” instead of traditional report cards at the end of the year.
Then, just two days later, the UGDSB announced it was changing course and would be releasing traditional report cards – but not until the end of the summer.
At that time officials said additional staff would be hired to input the grades. However, Slater told the Advertiser it was school principals who entered the grades for all their students.
“We didn’t hire outside help at all to have it done,” Slater said.
“The number one issue for us was around security of the information and freedom of information … it’s confidential what a student’s marks are so we thought it was best that it be handled by the administrator of the school.”
Slater said the principals were given additional pay above their annual salaries, for a couple of days in the summer.
In total the cost for the UGDSB to produce the report cards was between $110,000 and $115,000, Slater said, including the cost of photocopier rentals, office supplies and the additional salaries for the principals.
Inputting student marks is normally the responsibility of the student’s teacher, however due to the province-wide work-to-rule strike action started on May 11 by the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO), grades were submitted in non-electronic format to principals at the end of the 2014-15 school year.
In June ETFO officials said they are taking strike action due to demands from the government that would give school boards latitude to increase class sizes and dictate how teachers spend preparation time.
Parents are encouraged to pick up report cards at their child’s school office between Aug. 31 and the first day of classes.
