Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 17, 1994                   TAG: 9403170160
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY  
SOURCE: By MARA LEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

CHANGE FROM REPORT CARDS AT NEW SCHOOL DISCUSSED

Administrators of a $125,000 grant from the state talked about how to move from report cards to portfolios for early primary education, a more process and student-based system. They also talked about applications on the secondary level.

Forty-one Montgomery County teachers in four schools have been using and examining this technique in their kindergarten, first- and second-grade classes.

Children may choose, in part, what work goes in portfolios. Educators prefer evaluating student work over time to periodic tests and quizzes. Students do "go-home journals" weekly, which have space for parent and teacher dialogue.

The three presenters said that letter grades are used to sort students, compare them against each other. Karen McLeod, project director, said in an interview after the meeting, "I feel that grades can really hurt self-esteem. Ideally I would like to do away with them. Self-esteem is touchy-feely, but it's crucial."

McLeod said that portfolios rely on students assessing themselves. "If they don't see it, [a grade is] not going to matter a hill of beans," she said. "I would contend to you that my A, B, C is just as touchy-feely. What we're calling objective isn't really objective."

She added that children will naturally want to learn if they don't become convinced that they're stupid.

School Board Vice Chairman Bob Goncz seemed skeptical that parents would carry their share of the burden. "If you've found a way to do that, you oughta bottle that and sell it."

He said, "You have to sell this to more than a school board. New ways have to be sold to everyone."

As apparently, so do new school names. School Board members directed New Blacksburg Elementary School Principal Ray Van Dyke to send fliers home with every child in the Blacksburg elementary schools asking for volunteers for a four-parent, four-teacher naming committee. Van Dyke solicited names for all committees for the new school last fall. "I think you'll get the same names back," said Board member David Moore.

The board also directed Van Dyke to ask the entire community for names. The members asked the committee give them a choice of two to three names, instead of just one recommendation.

All Blacksburg fifth-graders will suggest names, too.

The board will vote on a name May 3. Some of the tongue-in-cheek and serious suggestions Van Dyke has received so far include: Food Lion Elementary, Prices Fork II, Stroubles Creek Elementary, Mountain View, Westview, Westside and Mary Ingels Draper.

In other business, Superintendent Herman Bartlett said the state would give Montgomery schools $290,000 more than they expected. "I understand there are some strings attached to that money and how we will use it," he said.

Memo: ***CORRECTION***