Elementary Report Cards - Details and Advanced Instruction

SETTING UP

• Attendance - Attendance is automatically entered on the report card. The accuracy of absences and tardies will depend on when you print the report cards, not when you fill them out. For the correct figures, you would need to print them on or after the last day of the term. Printing later than the end of the term will not be a problem because any school days between the last day of the term and when you print will be counted on the next term. If you want to print your cards before the last day of the term, you will need to be OK with a few inaccuracies in attendance.
• Working from Home - You can work on report cards at home if you have a relatively fast Internet connection. No need to carry discs back and forth, etc. Logging on and saving will likely take more time than at school - with a dial-up connection, it can take up to 30 minutes.  Aside from logging in, saving and logging out, however, your speed at home should be similar to that at school. (See troubleshooting section if you are having problems.)
• You may want to print a Blank Gr. 1-5 Report Card or Kindergarten Card - the blank can be used in a number of ways: to share with parents at conferences, to pass information on students to the homeroom teacher, to hand write a report card for students who have withdrawn and no longer show up on your Teacher Assistant page, etc.
• Print a Blank Spanish Report Card, too - Grades 1-5 Spanish Blank or Grade K Spanish Blank - to serve the same purposes for Spanish-speaking families.
• You could also print this Sample Report Card - to show parents what the card looks like when marked - or to see an example yourself.
• Sample Message to Parents about the Elementary Report Card - Some schools give parents a preview of the report cards they are receiving. Here is a sample letter with some ideas for information you could share in such a communication:

"In addition to Fall parent conferences, schools report to parents twice a year. We hope that the 4J report card will give you a clear picture of how your child is doing. The school district has elected to use the language of the Oregon State Standards in its elementary report card performance scale. The language used to report your child's progress towards state bench marks is in the following chart.

For any skills with "N" or "*" marks on your child's card, be sure to see comments at the bottom of the report card or inserted in the report card envelope for important information about your child's progress in those skill areas.
"Whether your child exceeds, meets or does not meet standards, we are required to inform you of where your child stands in relation to the state standards for her or his grade level. In the past we have sometimes attempted to "soften the blow" when passing along below-standard marks. But in the process we may have left the impression that the student was doing fine and that no interventions were necessary. Although the news may be unwelcome and seem harsh, it is important that parents have accurate information so that they can partner with us in helping their children catch up.
"The attached sample report card is a preview of the type of report you will receive twice a year, in late January or early February and again in June."

• Student Withdrawals - When students are withdrawn in eSIS, they immediately disappear from your class list in Teacher Assistant and report cards for them are impossible to enter. Teachers wanting to fill out report cards for students who transfer before the end of the term, have a couple of ways to do so:

  • One way is for the secretary to ask the homeroom teacher to fill out the report card (AND PRINT IT) before withdrawing the student. The reason to print a copy is that the new teacher will get a fresh report card and the grades the original teacher entered are currently stored in an archive that is not available at the new school.
  • If the student has already withdrawn, the teacher could fill out a blank report card (by hand) to send with the cum folder. (The comments could be word-processed rather than hand-written, of course.)
• Train Database - If you are practicing or training your colleagues on the eSIS report cards, instead of the "prod" data base, type "train" when you log in. "Train" is an exact copy of the prod database as it was on the previous Sunday. And because it will be overwritten by next Sunday's "prod", you can't do any harm in it.

MARKS

• The Grading Scale - The Instructional Leadership Team elected to use the language of the state standards in order to be consistent with the scale for benchmark testing. "E" for "exceeds standard", "M" for "meets standard" and "N" for "Not currently meeting standard". "Y" for "yet to be taught or insufficient evidence" should only be used in Term 1 or for a student brand new to the school. An asterisk "*" mark must be accompanied by a comment or insert that clearly states whether or not the student is meeting grade level benchmark standard in that skill.
• Entering Marks - The name of the person whose grades are being entered is in the window at the top right of the mark entry screen. To enter marks for that person, click in the "Mark" column across from the first skill to be marked, reading effort, and type the mark, E, M, or N. Press the down arrow key on the keyboard to go the the next skill.
  
  You will not be able to type in the subject heading lines or the Prev (previous) column. In the second term the Prev column will contain the first term's marks.
• Copy Marks - If you wish to put default marks on a student's report cards, type the mark you want in the reading effort mark column and click the "Copy Marks" button on the bottom of the window. If you use this feature, it is important to remember to change the marks that need changing.
• Save Often - At least after each student's marks are entered, click the "Save" icon on the bottom of the window.
• Moving to the Next Student - Click on the student's name near the top of the window. Then Press the down arrow key on the keyboard to go the the next student.
• Curriculum Summaries by Grade - 4J is currently developing prioritized curricula for each grade. In the meantime these summaries of the state content standards may give you a resource for explaining to parents the content behind the grades on your report card: Elementary Continuums by Grade.
• Moving to the Term Comments Screen - First save your marks then click the "Term Comments" button in the bottom left of the mark entry window. You will be entering comments for the same student for whom you were entering marks. See the Report Card Comments section for details on comments.

TERM 2

• Getting to Term 2

  • Select “Mark Entry” on the main Teacher Assistant screen.
  • Entry by Student – OK.
  • Select the class to mark.
  • Choose “Term 2” from the “Reporting Term” pull-down.
• Seeing Term 1 Marks and Comments
  • Term 1 marks are displayed on the Mark Entry screen in the “Prev” column.
  • Term 1 comments will be printed on the final report card but they are not visible on the screen as you fill out term 2 cards. Since most teachers will want access to what they wrote in term 1, here are several ways to see term 1 comments:
  • If you make a paper copy of your first term’s report cards, you can use the paper copy.
  • You can open the PDF file for your first term cards and click back and forth between the term 2 and term 1 cards.
  • You can open a second eSIS session and select “Term 1” and keep both on the screen. (It helps if you have a wide-screen monitor.)
  • Hint: to move between two files on a Mac, it helps to shrink the eSIS screen so that you can see the other windows that are open..  To do so, click the green button at the top left of the window (to maximize the window) and then click and drag the sizing box at the lower right of the window to reduce the window's size.
• Promotion Status
  • Added to the bottom of each student’s final report card will be a line that, unless you ask your school’s secretary to change it, will read:  “(Next year's) Grade Placement: Promoted to the next grade level."   For individual students who will be retained or grade skipped please ask your secretary to change this line for those individual students to read:  "(Next year's) Grade Placement: As discussed at conference.”  These changes cannot be made until the last week of school.  Instructions for the registrar/secretary. Call -3976 if the promotion status line is blank on Term 2 report cards.
• Printing with Final Attendance
  • Attendance will be accurate as of the day you print your report cards.  The later you print them, the fewer errors there will be.  As it may be risky to leave printing to the last day of school, however, teachers may be willing to accept a few inaccuracies to gain a margin of error by printing a day or two or three early.

REPORT CARD COMMENTS

• Typing Comments in eSIS - When you click the "Term Comments" button, you'll see two text windows and three comment tabs. You will only be using the bottom text window and the "My Comments" and "School Comments" tabs. Click in the "Teacher Comments" window to type your comments.
• Using a Word Processor for Comments - Although comments can be entered directly into the Term Comments text box, many teachers choose to type them into a word processor instead. Here are some of the pros and cons: 
  • Advantages:
    • You can spell check (the spell checker in eSIS isn't great).
    • You can copy and paste from other kids’ comments before copying and pasting into eSIS. 
    • You can print a copy of your comments file so that you’ll be able to see what you wrote in Term 1 while you are doing Term 2 comments.
  • Disadvantages:
    • Moving between two applications (in this case your word processor and the eSIS browser) can get confusing. It helps if you arrange your desktop so that you can see both of the windows you are working with and hide all others so that you can click from one to the other.  To shrink the TA window, first maximize the screen (the green button) then use the drag box on the lower right corner to drag the window smaller.  Then you can position the windows so that you can see them both.
  • Notes on Copying Word Processed Comments
    • Use the Edit menu rather than keyboard commands to paste into Term Comments. And be sure to use the eSIS Edit menu rather than the browser Edit menu. On the top of the screen, you should see two menubars, each with an Edit menu. The one you want is the one lowest on the screen.
    • You must turn off "smart quotes" in the word processor in order for apostrophes and quotation marks to print correctly. Instructions for turning off smart quotes in Microsoft Word and Appleworks.
    • To paste from a word processor into eSIS comments, you must use the eSIS Edit menu (not the browser Edit menu which is higher on the screen and not the keyboard command.)
    • When you copy and paste from a word processor, the returns may be stripped out when pasting into eSIS. If you want to do your comments in a word processor, the best approach might be to type comments that will be used by all students in Word or Appleworks. Correct spelling and grammar. Then paste it into the first student's card and use returns and spaces to get it looking right. Print a copy to be sure it works on the printer. Select and copy it and paste into each student's term comments. (The returns will paste when copied from eSIS.) As for individual comments, you could either type them directly into eSIS or, if you want spell check, etc, type them in paragraph form in a word processing document and copy/paste them in on the next pass through the report cards - then reformat as necessary.
    • Tabs don't work. Even though they do paste from word processors and you can make columns and tables look great in your Term Comments screen, they don't line up at all when you print. Click here for an example of how you might put information into comments without using columns (with thanks to Janet Watson, Judy Garwood and their team at Edgewood.) They typed it in one student's term comments in eSIS and copied and pasted into each student's card in several classes from that.
    • Bold, underline and italics are not supported. The best you can do is ALL CAPS.
• School Comments - Some, but not all, teachers like to use "canned" comments in writing their report cards. To use comments available to your school, click on the "School Comments" tab; click the comment you'd like to add, and click the "Copy" button. Here are some thoughts about using this feature:
  • These comments are not really canned because they can be edited, deleted, or added to by a school user (usually the secretary) > Instructions for editing comments.
  • The comments include codes that automatically plug in the student's first name ($), or a properly gendered pronoun (@ for he or she, # for his or her).
  • The comments are editable after they are copied into the teacher comment text box.
  • On this List of Comments - pdf - MSWord - are examples (in English and Spanish) of comments that are entered in School Comments or can be entered or pasted into School Comments or My Comments.
  • Comments copied from the School Comments list will not insert in the middle of already entered text.  No matter where you place the cursor, they will be added to the end of the entered text.  To get one in the right place, just cut it and paste it where it belongs. 
• My Comments - If you find yourself using the same phrases over and over again, you may want to enter your own personal comments. To do so, click on the "My Comments" tab and enter a number in the "Code" column and the phrase in the "Description" column. Use the $, @ and # symbols to automatically enter the student's first name or gender correct he/she or his/her pronoun.
  • Tip 1: Be sure you have a student and term selected when you enter comments or nothing you are working on will show up when you do pick one.
  • Tip 2: If you are adding to "My Comments", you have to finish the comment you are working on before you can do anything else. If you are stuck in a loop, be sure to look at the message bar at the bottom of the window to see if you can get a clue about what's happening. See if you can find the cursor - it is probably flashing where you need to do something.
  • Tip 3: Click the "Add" button before you enter a comment into "My Comments", and not afterwards (unless you want to enter an additional comment).
  • Tip 4: The number you give a comment rather than the order in which it is typed determines where you'll see it on the list - after you exit and come back the comments will be in the numerical order of the codes you entereed.
• Warning: If you are entering comments on a card that already has comments on it, each time you go back into the comments window, all of the text becomes highlighted in blue. Pretend all that blue is saying "DANGER" because if you start typing without de-selecting the text, the already entered comments will be deleted. De-select by clicking at the end of the comment. If you do inadvertently delete text, there is no UNDO command. So what you should do is EXIT WITHOUT SAVING.

PRINTING TIPS

• Leaving the print options as they are set is advised.  It may be tempting to include a school message or parent signature but both selections can cause problems and should only be used if the whole school decides to use them and learns how they work.
• "Adobe Acrobat Reader" is much better than "Preview" for a default program to open the cards when you print. To change the default, find one of the "getjobid=xxxx" files on your desktop, click on it once, choose "Get Info" from the "File" menu, click the "Open with" section and choose "Acrobat Reader", then click "Change All". If you don't have Acrobat Reader, download it free.
• If you just want to print certain cards from the file, you can search for a student in the Acrobat file and "Print current page" when the card you want is on the screen.
• Try printing only one page to test how the printer works. To do so, from the print screen choose "From 1 to 1":

• The problem of losing the edges when printing is unusual if you are using Acrobat Reader but common in Preview. But if you do get the problem, select "Page Setup" from the "File" menu, then set a lower percentage. First try 95%:

SPANISH LANGUAGE REPORTING

• Use of Spanish Language Reporting - These cards are for parents whose first and/or only language is Spanish. The district really appreciates the extra effort it takes to communicate with Spanish-speaking parents who would have trouble interpreting English-only cards. They are an important and growing portion of 4J's parents. However, please do not assume that parents want a Spanish language card - check the family's Preferred Language Survey or ask them to be sure it is what they want. Even if a family does want a card in Spanish, send an English card too.
• How to build Spanish language cards:
  • Enter marks on the card just as with the English language card.
  • Comments can be entered from the Spanish Language School Comments which are translations of the English comments directly above them. (For the Spanish translations that needed two lines, copy the top one first and then the second one. Delete the pronouns that do not match the child's gender - el=he, ella=she.)
  • Copy and paste any of these other comments you'd like to use.
  • Type in comments from the comment translation book available in each school (Teachers' Messages for Report Cards: English-Spanish Edition, Maria Elena Mendez Robbins.)
• How to print Spanish language cards:
  • Print all the report cards in English.
  • Go back to the Teacher Assistant page and highlight the name of the student for whom you want a Spanish card.
  • Click the "Hot Print" button - the printer icon beside the save button - just as you do to print any individual card. (Instructions for printing whole class and individual cards.)
  • Check Progress Report and uncheck everything else. Click the printer button.
  • Change the Language version on the bottom left of the parameter window to "Spanish".
  • Select the current term.
  • Click the printer icon.
  • Print the pdf file that appears.

MULTIPLE TEACHERS MARKING THE SAME STUDENTS

• Sharing Passwords - Really bad idea! Here is how eSIS expert Helene Douglass at Multnomah ESD replied to a query about this: "Sharing passwords is very bad. It can cause deadlocks on the database (and we have seen it happen multiple times). Depending on the table that is locked - it can cause users to think that their own session is 'hung' and they will force quit out and log back in creating more locks. The database can become so bad all you can do is bring the database down and re-start it. I would strongly advise you to not share passwords."
• Here are some other possibilities:
  • Talk to your administrator about the possibility of getting access to the other homerooms in your school. The administrator is the only one who can request such access. Your registrar can then grant teachers access to other homerooms' students. Click here for registrar instructions.
  • Photocopy a blank card for each of your homeroom students and pass it around to those grading students in your class to fill in the marks. For comments, send an Appleworks word processed document to the homeroom teacher for copying and pasting.
  • Use a system like Sharri Stewart's at Crest Drive. She made half sheet copies of the report card on card stock. One color for her homeroom, one color for readers not in her homeroom and a different color for math students not in her homeroom. She added a place for Name, and Homeroom, reading and math teacher names. They have a hole in one corner and are kept together with a ring. It's a handy size to keep them close throughout the day to make special notes of things I observe that might affect the grade I give. She also keeps the spelling grade average, homework assignment return rate etc. (things they want to include on the comments page). "When it's time to do the grades," she says,"these come in very handy. We love them!" Sample cards 1 and 2.
  • Schedule a time to use each homeroom teacher's computer (logged in to her/his class) to enter grades while that teacher is doing other things (like entering grades for your homeroom kids on your computer.)
  • Sit by the homeroom teacher while she/he enters the grades and comments you dictate.

SUPPORT AND TROUBLESHOOTING

• Instructions - Linked to this website are instructions that have been used by many teachers to create and print their report cards without a need for training.
• Training - The elementary report card is part of the Teacher Assistant module that CIS trains all new teachers to use for attendance, access to student records, etc. See the main eSIS screen or call the CIS trainer at -3999 for more information.
• The Elementary Report Cardre is a list of the people who know their way around the report card and have volunteered to help. The school listed is from the 05-06 school year and may no longer be accurate. Wherever they are, these may be the folks to ask first if you need help.
• Home Computer Problems : If you are having trouble connecting to eSIS from home, Peggy Hinsman (hinsman_p) for Macs and Garry McCready (mccready) for PCs offer the following suggestions:
  • Macs: 1. If you are using Safari or FireFox, quit from the browser, go into the Applications folder, click once on the browser you are using, press Cmd-I and under General you will see a check box next to Open using Rosetta. Uncheck this box. Try to connect to eSIS now and see if it will work. 2. Carol Greig has tried Camino with eSIS and said it works better for her than FireFox or Safari. If you want to give it a try, download it from http://www.caminobrowser.org/, double click the .dmg file when it's done downloading, move Camino into your Applications folder and see if you can connect to eSIS using Camino.
  • PCs: If this is the first time you've tried getting into eSIS since last year, you'll need a new version of what's called the "JInitiator" that you'll be prompted to download to your PC. Depending on how fast a connection you have at home this could take anywhere from a couple minutes up to an hour or so. Please try it again and give it an hour or so to download. It only takes this long the first time you download the JInitiator. After it's been loaded starting up eSIS thereafter should be pretty quick.
• If You Get Hung Up - For help getting back on eSIS should your session lock up, call Bob Kimble, 687-3627, or, if he isn't at his desk, Gunawan Darmadi, 687-3976. NOTE: It will not help - and may hurt - to quit a "hung" session and try to start another one. If you get hung up on a weekend or evening, you can try leaving your account alone for an hour or more. If you need to use your computer for other tasks, force quit the browser but don't try logging in to eSIS for an hour or so.
• Certificate Expiration Messages - Occasionally there is a flurry of messages about Expired Certificates that pop up at various times when working on report cards. If you get one of these messages it is because the district's security certificate needs renewing. There is nothing wrong with your computer. To stop getting the annoying message here's what to do:
  • Read the message to be sure it is about an expired certificate. (Other messages that raise concerns about the identity of your computer or server should NOT be trusted. With the message on the screen or copied down, call Mike Scolla 687-6938 to find out what to do.)
  • For expired certificates, you should have three choices: "Trust", "Don't Trust", and "Show Certificate". Click "Show Certificate".
  • On the screen that appears, click "Always trust these certificates ".
  • You may have to log out of eSIS and log back in or repeat the process a time or two to be rid of the messages.
  • If this is a new thing, please let CIS know about it so that they can deal with the expired certificate.
  • For a pdf of these instructions with screen shots, please click here.   
• Can't Paste Copied Comments - The keyboard commands for copy and paste won't work in Term Comments. Use the eSIS menubar. Be sure you are using the eSIS Edit menu rather than the browser Edit menu. On the top of the screen, you should see two menubars, each with an Edit menu. The one you want is the one lowest on the screen. If that doesn't do it, this might: quit your browser and reopen it. If you get a security warning message, click "Grant always". For some reason, "Grant this session" doesn't allow pasting your copied comments. You should only have to do this once on any particular computer.
• Unused Features - Some report card buttons should not be used:  Edit, and Misc., which are to the right of the marks, Services, Performance/Effort Levels, Reassign Curriculum, and Enter Ad Hoc Fields along the bottom of the Mark Entry window; Promotion Status on the Term Comments screen.  Spell Check on the comments screen does work but this spell check does not highlight the misspelled words it finds so it may be easier to spell check in your word processor.
• Misbehaving Cursor - It doesn't go where you click; it flies up a bunch of lines when doing marks; it gets stuck in a subject line (the ones you don't mark); or, in the extreme case, it sends you to the first student's report card and won't let you go anywhere else.
  • It seems to happen mainly (or only) on Macs with System X.2.8 or earlier.
  • Since it did not happen in 05-06, it is probably a conflict between older systems and recent upgrades to eSIS.
  • Data that has been saved is not affected.
  • Opening affected report cards on an updated computer, appears to allow work without problems.
• Prevention:
  • Upgrade to at least System X.3.9
  • Try to avoid typing marks into the subject lines.
  • If you enter an incorrect mark, instead of using delete, highlight it and use the spacebar to erase it.
• If it should happen to you:
  • Upgrade or use a different computer that is upgraded.
  • To delete a mark that has you stuck, highlight it and use the space bar instead of the delete key. (The sooner you do this, the better.)
  • If you continue to have problems, log off eSIS and log back in; quit and restart your browser; switch browsers; restart your computer; or even shut down your computer and restart it after an hour or so.
  • Find an updated computer or PC on which to finish your work.
  • Comments don't seem to be affected - and if they do go weird on you, a restart should fix it. So if you are stuck on marks, you can still do your comments while trying to get a solution.
• Can't save or move to the next student. eSIS sends you back to the previous student. This is rare but on the off chance that that should happen to you, you might want to save this list of some things to try:
  • When eSIS keeps sending you back to something, there is usually something that needs to be done and the message bar on the bottom of the window usually tells you what that is. If the message is in computereze, copy it down and send it to us and we'll see if we can help.
  • Save before you click Term Comments and then, when you've got the comments in, save before you click the Exit button.
  • Log out and log back in. If that doesn't get you unstuck, restart your computer.
  • Make sure that all of your Software Updates are installed. The cursor bouncing around is one of the things Peggy Hinsman fixed last term by having folks update software.
  • Try a different browser (Firefox if you're usind Safari or vice versa).
  • Try a different computer - one from the COW should work for this.
  • Call Peggy Hinsman (3198), Mary Guldager (3999), Gunawan Darmadi (3976) or Garry McCready (3359) when you are stuck and let us help you problem solve.