By Holly Fesperman Lee

Salisbury Post

Parents of Rowan-Salisbury school students can expect to see several pieces of information coming home starting at the end of the month.

Colby Cochran, director of assessment/accountability services, presented a schedule for notifying parents about student, school and district performance at last Monday’s school board meeting.

Individual student report cards will be distributed on Jan. 31. Each school has a choice of sending these home with students, having parents pick them up or hosting parent conferences.

Parents of students who are identified as “limited English proficient” will also receive a letter from Superintendent Dr. Judy Grissom about Title III district improvement.

The purpose of Title III is “to help ensure that children who are limited English proficient, including immigrant children and youth, attain English proficiency, develop high levels of academic attainment in English and meet the same challenging state academic content and student academic achievement standards as all children are expected to meet,” according to the Department of Public Instruction’s Web site.

The Rowan-Salisbury district must go into Title III district improvement because the subgroup of students with limited English proficiency did not make adequate yearly progress under the No Child Left Behind federal accountability program.

Cochran said the school district will write a plan on how it is going to help students with limited English proficiency make adequate yearly progress.

Grissom will also send a ConnectEd telephone message to each student’s home on Jan. 31, announcing that a North Carolina School/District Report Card packet will be sent home on Feb. 1.

These packets will include:

* A letter from Grissom.

* A copy of the District Improvement Plan.

* A How Parents Can Help magnet.

* A school snapshot, which is the highlights of how their child’s particular school performed on state and federal measurements. Besides testing, the snapshot includes information about student suspensions and safety.

* Information about understanding the school snapshot report.

* A district snapshot, which is a similar summary of how the entire Rowan-Salisbury district fares on state and federal measurements. Parents who want more detailed information about school and district snapshots can visit www.ncreportcards.org.

* Information on understanding the district snapshot.

* Information on how many teachers at each school are considered “highly qualified” under the No Child Left Behind law. The report will also say how many teachers have taken advantage of high quality staff development.

Spanish-speaking families will receive the packet information in Spanish.

A letter from Associate State Superintendent Elsie Leak will be mailed to student homes and should arrive during the week of Feb. 5.

The letter will explain to parents about the Rowan-Salisbury district entering corrective action under the federal No Child Left Behind program, which includes help from a state assistance team.

Contact Holly Lee at 704-797-7683 or hlee@salisburypost.com.