LIS parents should check seventh-graders’ progress in Social Studies

Nakamura
LAHAINA – Aloha! We are currently at the beginning of second quarter. Report cards will be coming out within the next two weeks.
Seventh grade parents, please check your child’s Social Studies grades. Seventh grade is the only grade level that has separate semester courses.
If your child does not pass first semester, he/she will become a seventh grade retainee (7R). The success of your child during this quarter is crucial to whether or not promotion to the next grade level takes place.
Remember, the Department of Education requires “Ancient Hawaiian Kingdom,” and the Legislature requires “Contemporary Issues” faced by Hawaii and the nations and territories of the Pacific.
These two courses are separate, and grades at the end of the semesters cannot accumulate to represent a year grade in Social Studies.
Heads up! How disheartening it will be to learn that your child will not be promoted to the eighth grade only halfway through the school year. Ouch, that hurts!
As shared in last month’s message, our significant decrease in the HSA reading score was a great disappointment to all of us. We did have multiple issues with the computers during online testing.
What we realized, later, was that we tested our students throughout the entire day – big slap on the forehead!
Years and years of administering the HSA have been practiced during the first two hours of school in the mornings.
“Have a good night’s rest and eat a hearty breakfast” had been the mantra. Yet, we tested our students until the end of the school day! Behavior wise, in the middle school, misbehavior begins to occur more frequently around snack recess, 10 a.m. Yet, we tested our students all day…
The task to test our students online three times during the school year apparently caused temporary brain paralysis, but this year we are ready. We will be testing during the first two hours of the morning in homerooms. We will be adjusting our classes accordingly on those days.
We are certain that our test scores will bounce back up to and beyond the 72 percent proficiency we scored two years ago. Get ready, parents – the first round of testing for Reading will be Oct. 18, 19 and 20. IMUA!