Assessment Philosophy:
The Hebrew word t’filah (to pray) literally means “to judge oneself.” Inner reflection and self-feedback are at the core of what it means to be Jewish. Every day we look inside ourselves to see what we have accomplished. We evaluate our strengths, weaknesses, and what we hope to achieve. Amos and Celia Heilicher Minneapolis Jewish Day School parents, students, and educators work in partnership and value constructive feedback to promote student, family, faculty, and collective community growth. The School’s assessment philosophy provides a foundation for its assessment processes.
Teachers and administrators at the Day School use the following to demonstrate the importance of multi-faceted assessment. The information below is part of a carefully considered, well thought-out educational philosophy established collectively by our teachers, administrators, parents, and Board members. It is also based on national best practices in elementary and middle schools. We hope this information will be helpful to parents. We also hope it will serve as our ongoing guide as we continue to develop new and varied assessment strategies to inspire students and our entire learning community to achieve success.
The Day School works hard to ensure that all students benefit from a variety of assessment tools, measuring your child’s personal growth and development, and their achievement relative to their peers and other student populations, and to identify students who can benefit from enhancement and enrichment services.
Assessment of students and communication with parents regarding performance are ongoing, take a variety of forms, and look at your child as a whole individual:
Advisory -- Grade 7-8 students benefit from being part of a small, same-grade and same-gender advisory group. The advisors, who are also Day School teachers, get to know their advisees well, help them navigate individual or group social, emotional, academic situations, and become one of parents’ key contacts for ongoing check-ins and assessments.
Child Study -- Child study meetings are attended by teachers, resource team members, and specialists, and occur on a regular basis by grade level. The purpose is to exchange information and share strategies to better meet individual student needs. Feedback from assessments will be used to evaluate each student’s strengths and weaknesses and determine the need for individual education plans and resource support. Action plans—which may include recommendations for further assessment, individual educational planning meetings, and resource support—result from this “think tank” approach to working with our students.
Fall Goal Setting Conferences -- Goal setting conferences are held early (approximately six weeks) into the academic year. Kindergarten parents attend conferences without their child. In most cases grade 1-8 students are asked to attend conferences with their parents. Grade 1-6 students share their portfolios with parents as part of the conference experience. Grade K-6 conferences include meeting with general studies as well as Hebrew, Judaic studies, and resource teachers. At grade 7-8 conferences, families meet with all six core subject teachers.
Individualized Plans -- Individualized Plans (IP) are written documents which identify specified goals and objectives toward which a student who can benefit from receiving internal enhancement or enrichment services will work over the course of the year. Services may be direct, indirect, or in conjunction with public school services. The IP clarifies responsibilities of school staff and parents, and is an agreement of our home-school partnership. Parents whose children have individualized plans meet to review the IP periodically throughout the school year, in addition to reviewing them at fall goal-setting and spring conferences with appropriate professionals.
Informal Observation -- Informal observations by professional staff provide a valuable tool in assessing student performance. This occurs throughout the year and is incorporated into each student’s portfolio.
Performance-Based Evaluation -- Teacher evaluation of a student’s writing, projects, math, reading strategies, presentations, tests, and other work provides individualized and immediate feedback regarding that child’s understanding of new material and ability to apply what they have learned.
Progress Reports -- Progress reports communicating a child’s achievements will be mailed home twice a year for grades K-6 and three times a year for grades 7 and 8. They describe where a child is on a developmental continuum as well as measure against age-appropriate benchmarks specific to each grade level.
School Programs -- Many school programs which grow organically out of the curriculum provide ongoing opportunities for students to gain confidence and demonstrate what they know through increasing proficiency in public speaking skills and expression through a variety of modalities including music and art.
Self Evaluation -- Student reflection about strategies for studying, approaching projects, and knowing how they learn is an important part of assessment. Self-evaluation provides students the opportunity to evaluate their awareness of where they are in the learning process and demonstrates their strategies for problem solving.
Spring Conferences -- Spring conferences are held in March. Teachers discuss progress towards goals set in the fall and make final plans for the last quarter of the year. Once again, most grade 1-8 students are asked to attend conferences with their parents. Grade 1-6 students share updated portfolios with their parents. While kindergarten parents attend spring conferences without their child, a special kindergarten portfolio review event will be held in the spring. Grade K-6 conferences include meeting with general studies teachers as well as Hebrew, Judaic studies, and specialist teachers. At grade 7-8 conferences, families meet with all six core subject teachers.
Standardized Tests -- Standardized tests are administered to students in grades 3-8. Results are communicated to families with a home report that includes appropriate explanations to help parents and students interpret the outcomes and put them in context. Standardized tests provide a means to measure a student’s abilities and how their achievements compare to other student populations. The test should be as closely aligned to our curriculum as possible, without sacrificing its applicability as a measure of Day School student performance relative to other populations.
Student Portfolios -- Student portfolios, a self-selected collection of work samples, provide students an opportunity to evaluate their own work and reflect upon their accomplishments as well as share their progress with their parents.
Student Work Exhibitions -- Displays of student work (including but not limited to portfolios) occur frequently during the school year. These exhibitions offer your child an opportunity to share, reflect on, and evaluate the quality of their own work on a regular basis.
Age-Based Developmental Benchmarks – The Day School takes a developmental approach to education. Each student is nurtured and challenged according to his or her own individual academic, social, emotional, and physical maturation. What follows is a sampling of the developmental needs associated with elementary and middle school children.
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