DD9 brought home her interims and what is called "mCLASS Literacy Report". I actually had to sit down when I saw the scores. DD has always had nothing but 4s and the occasional 3's since K. She had 2's for the first time in her life in Reading - Literature Fiction, Key Ideas, and Refer to Ideas. I truly had no idea what was going on. To top it off her literacy report stated that her (the mCLASS report) had "retelling a story" at a very low level. This is a child whose levels previously stated that she was reading and comprehending at middle school levels. Her test scores have been stable for years. I pounced on my husband when he walked in the door, and his question was "Why the change now? What is different?"
I have attempted to get information from DD about the teacher and the reading. She states A)Why do I want to know about her private business? (this is so frustrating). B) That she has to listen to this teacher read the chapter book out loud which is quite boring so when the teacher asks her questions she just shrugs, and (C)This teacher rates a 1 (out of a score from 1 - 5, 1 being bad). DD then shared some of the yelling and things the teacher had said to her (DD has been losing items and forgetting homework again, like last year).
DD has been diagnosed with ADHD inattentive, but would that cause one particular reading score to plummet? Would hating a teacher affect just one section? We are waiting for the 504 for the ADHD to kick in (very soon). I am just so upset for DD. She read the interim. She saw that there were no 4's. We have never ever made a big deal over grades - but she noticed the difference.
We did plan on pulling DD from this school, but the other school we have interviewed was not as advertised, unfortunately.
DD deserves a kind teacher. I told my husband that he will be the one who needs to speak at the conference because I don't know if I can be civil.

I don't know anything about that assessment but if I had to make a guess,she totally tuned out the teacher reading aloud and therefore couldn't answer the questions. Does the teacher know about the ADHD? Sounds like she could use some literature on how to handle ADHD children. Yelling/punishing doesn't tend to work well. DD had a sub last year that did this and DD just became anxious, making her even slower with things, and passive aggressive, so she dug in her heals and didn't bother even trying after a while. She said "what's the point, nothing I do will ever make her happy." So what do you mean the other school you interviewed was not advertised?

It is the beginning of the year where you are? I remember reading similar complaints this time last year which were explained as "if I give 4's now then the student will have the same scores now as at the end of the year and it will look like I haven't taught her anything" eg room for growth. Alternately she is tuning out and shrugging like she says the the teacher assumes it is beyond her - which in a way it is if she is not engaged. I mean if the assessment is of whether she can listen to a boring book attentively and answer questions she can't but that is probably not what the teacher thinks she is assessing.

I will second the post regarding 4's not being given out at the beginning of the year so the teacher can say that progress is made through the year. In fact, I heard through the grapevine that the teachers were being pressured not to give 4's.

In addition, one teacher told me that they could not give a 4 in some areas, because that grade is "Above benchmark" and if their assessments are all at "Benchmark" level, then they have no proof in school assessments to give that grade.

Grades are not always what they seem and I would continue not to make a big deal out of them at early elementary ages.

However, in your situation, it seems like there may be another issue and a parent conference is warranted to get to know the teacher and her methods, and to help her get to know your daughter.

Black cat - I should have stated "Not as advertised". I had posted here about checking out other schools on the urging of our psychologist. At the visit to one promising location we listened to the principal claim that the school taught 2 years ahead of public schools, differentiating work for every child, etc. She also led us to believe that DD would probably be grade accelerated, but then she later decided not to as she was worried about DD9's social development. Upon the advice of parents here, I went to the school and looked at the text books. They were grade level, not advanced as promised. I talked to the teachers. The language teacher does differentiate curriculum. The math/science teacher does not. I explained that DD9 is SSA in math plus does pre algebra at an after school class, but the teacher kindly stated that is something for older kids at the school. This school just wasn't the right fit.

I of course stewed over this last night. I was trying to decide if I was over reacting, but then I decided that something was up. As I stated, she has never ever received a 2 or low assessment so it signals that something is up. For a kid who rarely shares I am going to take her bad rating of her teacher seriously. She gave her SSA math teacher fabulous ratings BTW. I sent out an email to the teacher asking for an appointment for DH and I. I also asked to see DD9's assessment. What worries me is that the psych., DH, my mother (AIG teacher), and I are going in to the school to see what we can do to create a better "fit" for DD and here we get this assessment and report card with this dip. I have to believe that the principal will note that it's just one instance whereas all the other testing shows strong scores way above 4th grade levels.
I also went back and looked at report cards from earlier years - yes, first and 2nd quarters many 3s then always ending in 4s. So there is something about that, for sure.

All of that sounds perfectly normal to me. :-) What did you say to her when she asked why you wanted to know? She may be thinking/interpreting that you will be mad at her for the low grade and so hasn't wanted to discuss it. She may need help with the teacher but be unable to enunciate it. DS8 and I have an agreement that I stay out of his school business and he handles the teacher issues UNTIL he needs help. HOWEVER, he can't always tell me when he needs it so sometimes he has emotional outburts which are my cue that he needs me to intervene.

Also it sounds boring; I can't stand listening to someone else read out loud.

I looked up mCLASS, and found that it is a computerized outgrowth of DIBELS, with various components that are administered and analyzed through the same online platform. From your description, I suspect that your district has switched to using mCLASS:beacon, which consists of 4-6 item probes in various grade-level common core learning standards in ELA and math. I would imagine that if she found a set of items (which would all be one task) annoying, that she could have checked out or replied under protest for just that item set.

Keep in mind that, like most interim assessments, mCLASS is designed to catch low-performing students and flag them for intervention, not to identify high-performing students for enrichment. The ceilings are generally rather low (often determined by the grade-level setting on the assessment) on these quick and dirty measures. Plus, is this system new to your system? It's often administered on the computer, where a misplaced button press or keystroke could make all the difference.

You can try to get them to re-administer. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes to do. I would spend some time finding out where your DD's comments and attitude are coming from, first, though. (Sounds like you've made a start on that already.)

Yes, now I remember the situation. Good thing you asked all the right questions and found this out. It would have been horrible to enroll, move her, and then find out.

Thank you for finding out about the assessment. It is a new system for the school (state?). I have the sheets next to me to look up the actual scores. Interesting that it's meant to focus on lower level learners. If the teacher will show us DD's actual test as we requested it will be helpful to see where she went wrong.
We are pretty clear now about DD's attitude. That's why the psych. wants us to get her out of the school. Believe me, we are working very very hard on this. DD is very unhappy about school (except her math class where she's accelerated (love that teacher!!!!!).