Peel, York schools not issuing report cards

Students will instead receive a letter that says what grade they’ll be in next school term

The Peel and York public boards won’t issue final report cards, and the Toronto District School Board will inform parents of its plans on Thursday.

Because the Greater Toronto area boards are so large, it is expected few — if any — will issue reports to students given the ongoing work-torule by elementary teachers, who have decided to submit marks only — no comments — to principals, who would then have to input the data.

For Peel, with 112,000 elementary students, completing report cards would involve an estimated three million “individual data entries . . . cost estimates to hire additional staff to assist would be about $1 million,” the board said in a written release.

In Peel and York, students will instead receive a letter with information about what grade they’ll be in in the fall.

The Durham and Halton board say they are still deciding what to do, but “it’s clear that June report cards will look different this year,” said Halton spokesperson Marnie Denton.

Among other Ontario boards, Niagara and Simcoe County have said they will issue student marks, as has Trillium-Lakelands.

The education ministry has refused to provide boards with any additional funds to hire staff to get the reports done.

“We respect the fact that public elementary teachers across Ontario are taking part in lawful job action. But the reality is this action includes not writing report card comments, and not inputting student marks electronically for the purpose of producing report cards,” said Peel’s Director of Education Tony Pontes.

“As a board, our production of report cards for over 112,000 elementary students relies on this inputting of data by teachers. To try to have others — like 350 principals and viceprincipals — take on the work of almost 5,000 classroom teachers is an impossible task.”

The placement letter, to be handed out to elementary students June 22, “will contain an explanation of the replacement of the report card, information about the placement of the child for next year, and all additional information the school can provide at this time, including attendance and times late. This letter will be part of the Ontario Student Record.”

The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario said parents should be asking why school boards aren’t providing the marks, given teachers are submitting them to principals.

The union also said if parents want information about their children’s grades, they should be checking with principals, not teachers.

“Under ETFO’s legal work-to-rule job action, teachers are fulfilling their responsibilities to transmit marks to their principals for each elementary student in their classes,” president Sam Hammond said in a written release.

“It is then the responsibility of the principal and school boards to keep student records and to report on student promotion to parents. How the school boards choose to fulfil this responsibility is up to them.”

In York, Director of Education J. Philip Parappally said its letter will include attendance information and grade placement for the fall.

“We understand that this is disappointing — we share that disappointment. At the same time, the final report is one piece of assessment and should contain no surprises,” he wrote.