Plymouth River Elementary

February 27th, 2023

Dear Families:

Every year, each public school and each school district in Massachusetts receives a report card. Just as your child’s report card shows how they are doing in different subjects, the school’s report card is designed to show families how our school is doing in different areas. A link to our school’s report card is available at Plymouth River Elementary Report card, and the district report card is linked here.

The report card includes multiple measures of a school’s performance – more than just MCAS scores. It represents a new way of looking at school performance by providing information on student achievement, teacher qualifications, student learning opportunities, and more.

Report cards are designed to be useful tools for everyone connected to our school. Families can use the information to have meaningful conversations with us about what the school is doing well and where there is room for improvement. Community and education leaders can use the information to better understand how to support students and our school.

You will notice on our report card that we are you will see our growth in ELA based on MCAS is 64.1 and in math, MCAS is 62.9. This growth is above the district and state averages. Student growth measures the amount of academic progress a student made over the year, based on MCAS. It compares a student’s MCAS performance to other students with similar past MCAS scores. Growth is reported on a scale from 1 to 99, with lower numbers representing lower progress and higher numbers representing higher progress. An average growth score between 40 and 60 means that the district or school is making typical progress. Overall, our school performs better than 92% of elementary and middle schools statewide.

To improve student performance in our school, we are aware that COVID has had a factor on attendance but in order to keep improving in moving forward our chronic absenteeism has jumped from 4.2% to 9.5%. This will be a focus of the school in order to help all students be in school, learning and meeting the state's time-on-learning guidelines. We encourage you to become involved in helping us improve our school. We see parents as critical partners in the success of our students and school, and we are grateful for your continued support.

Finally, 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, and

• Whether your child is provided services by paraprofessionals and, if so, their qualifications.

If you have questions about our school’s report card, would like to become involved in school improvement activities, or would like to request information about the qualifications of your child’s classroom teacher, please contact principal Lamothe at glamothe@hinghamschools.org. To see our district’s report card or to search for other schools’ report cards, visit reportcards.doe.mass.edu.

Sincerely,

Gregory E. Lamothe, M. Ed

Principal

Plymouth River Elementary School

Please note there are two mistakes on the report card:

1. While the report indicates no students participated in Digital Literacy/Computer Science, all of our K-5 students participate in a 40-minute specialist in the six-day cycle in this discipline.

2. There were 5 suspensions during the school year 2021-2022 whereas the report card shows zero.