The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) has announced it will provide report cards to elementary students after protests from both students and parents.
The TDSB announced the change Tuesday, saying that all 170,000 Grade 1 to 8 students will receive report cards with a summary of marks and information about attendance and placement for the new school year by mail, during the week of July 13.
“To ensure that all students and parents receive marks in an equitable and timely manner, the TDSB is deploying teams comprised of senior staff and business/operational staff to schools that require additional assistance,” said Donna Quan TDSB board’s Director of Education in a letter to parents.
Kindergarten students, who typically do not get report cards anyways, will receive placements letters for the next school year.
Worries about report cards have been rising since the Elementary Teacher’s Federation of Ontario (ETFO) decided not input grades electronically as a protest to board plans to increase class sizes. Teachers are currently in a legal strike position, which permits their work-to-rule action.
While teachers had provided marks to principals, larger boards such as Toronto, York and Peel found that the cost of having administrators create report cards would be too high, and therefore decided to send their student placement letters, indicating which classes the students would be in come the new school year.
Since that announcement, students have been protesting outside and parents have been calling principals, triggering the new decision to send out report cards.
The Durham Regional School Board announced its decision to issue report cards without comments to elementary students on June 25, a day after the TDSB decision.
The York and Peel school boards have yet to announce if they will change their decision on not sending home report cards.
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