December 16, 2013
Dear Parent or Guardian:
We are pleased to make available our school’s “report card” on our district website. Report cards answer important questions about a school's overall performance and contain specific information about student enrollment and teacher qualifications, student achievement, accountability, how a school is performing relative to other schools in the district and the state, and the progress made toward narrowing proficiency gaps for different groups of students.
In this report you will find the following important information about Norwood High School:
Student enrollment and teacher quality: This section of the report card provides information about the students and teachers in our school as compared to the district and the state. If your child attends a school that receives federal Title I funds, you also have the right to request the following information about the qualifications of your child’s classroom teachers:
- Whether your child’s teacher is licensed in the grade levels and subject areas they teach
- Whether your child’s teacher is teaching under an emergency license or waiver
- The college degree and major of your child’s teacher
- Whether your child is provided services by paraprofessionals and, if so, their qualifications
Student assessment on MCAS and other tests: This section of the report shows how our students are performing on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) tests as compared to the district and the state.
School and district accountability information: This section of the report contains three important pieces of information:
- Accountability and Assistance Levels: Schools and districts are placed into one of five accountability and assistance levels (1-5), with the highest performing in Level 1 and lowest performing in Level 5. Our school has been placed into Level 2 because of our low MCAS participation (less than 95%).
- School Percentiles: A school percentile between 1 and 99 is reported for most schools. This number shows the overall performance of our school relative to other schools that serve the same or similar grades. Our school percentile is 48. This means that our school is performing higher than 48 percent of the high schools in the state.
- Progress and Performance Index (PPI): The PPI is a number that indicates our school’s progress toward narrowing proficiency gaps, or, in other words, helping all students reach proficiency and be prepared for success after high school. Massachusetts has set a goal of reducing proficiency gaps by half between the years 2011 and 2017. For a group of students to be considered to be making sufficient progress toward narrowing proficiency gaps, its cumulative PPI must be 75 or higher.
To improve student achievement in our school, we are instituting a number of programs to ensure academic success. A detailed list of these academic programs can be obtained by calling the high school.
We encourage you to become involved in helping us improve our school. Some of the ways you can become involved are:
- Encouraging your child’s learning at home
- Attending parent-teacher meetings and other special meetings
- Serving as a volunteer in our school or district
- Encouraging other parents to become involved
For more information about our school’s report card or to request information about the qualifications of your child’s classroom teachers, please feel free to contact my office at 781-352-3520.
Sincerely,
George S. Usevich
Principal