2025-26 Report Card Dates

End of 1st quarter: October 10, 2025 

• Report Cards given to families during conferences on October 9 and 10

End of 2nd quarter: December 19, 2025

• Report Cards mailed to families on January 9, 2026

End of 3rd quarter: March 13, 2026

• Report Cards given to families during conferences on March 12 and 13.

End of 4th quarter: May 29, 2026

• Report Cards sent home with students on May 29, 2026

How does the district determine what is measured on the report card?

Illinois Learning Standards are taught at each grade level and can be found at isbe.net/pages/learning-standards.aspx

What do the ratings my student receives on their report card mean?

4 – Advanced (Exceeds expectations – demonstrates advanced understanding or mastery of the standard)

3 – Proficient (Demonstrates mastery or proficient understanding of the standard)

2 – Basic (Shows partial mastery or basic understanding of the standard)

1 – Minimal (Indicates little to no understanding or mastery of the standard)

How is it determined what my student earns on a report card?

A student’s grade is determined by how well they demonstrate mastery of specific learning standards, rather than by a traditional percentage or letter grade system. The report card reflects a student’s progress towards specific skills and objectives outlined in the curriculum.

Why are there some blanks or NA’s on my student’s report card?

This means that the particular standard was not taught and/or not enough evidence was collected to assess that standard during that particular quarter.

When can I expect a report card from my student?

Report cards are distributed quarterly – four times a school year.

How does the district determine ratings for Social Skills and Work Habits?

4 – Consistently

3 – Usually

2 – Basic

1 – Minimal

English Language Arts:

Print Concepts (K-1) 

What it means: Students will be working on gaining an understanding of the organization and basic features of print. This includes such things as following words left to right and top to bottom, spacing in printed words, and features of a sentence (capitalization, ending punctuation, etc). 

Phonological Awareness (K-1) 

What it means: This standard focuses on your student’s ability to hear, identify, and use individual sounds (or phonemes) in spoken words. Students developing this skill will be working on tasks such as listening, counting or breaking apart words based on sounds. 

Phonics and Word Recognition 

What it means: Phonics is the ability to connect letters of written language to individual sounds (see phonological awareness) in spoken language. Word recognition is the ability to recognize known written words correctly and efficiently as well as using word analysis skills to read unfamiliar words (decoding). Work on this skill can vary widely from understanding basic one-to-one letter-sound relationships in Kindergarten to comprehending prefixes, root words, and/or suffixes in 5th grade. 

Fluency 

What it means: Fluency is the ability to read text accurately and quickly. It moves students from learning to read to reading to learn and is essential for high levels of reading understanding. 

Key Ideas and Details 

What it means: Your student will be encouraged to carefully listen to and read many books and texts. Within these texts, your student will be working to understand what is happening, summarize key events or points and recall details important to the story or topic. 

Craft and Structure 

What it means: This strand asks students to focus on specifics within a book, for example, an author’s specific word choices, phrases, or reasons for writing a text. A second focus relates to understanding how common types of texts, such as story books or poems, are constructed. 

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas 

What it means: Within this strand, students will be working to compare and contrast details from stories, describe key ideas using details in informational text, and tell how two texts on the same topic differ.

Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity 

What it means: Teachers will be using a variety of techniques to introduce a range of books and other written material that both support and challenge your student. This may include nonfiction and fiction, infographics, poetry and more. This will be done with the ultimate goal of making sure students understand what they’re reading. 

Text Types and Purposes 

What it means: We write for many different purposes, and these standards address that fact. Teachers will be asking students to write opinion pieces about books or topics, informative pieces that contain facts about a topic, and more traditional-style writing called narrative in which students write about specific events or details. 

Production and Distribution of Writing 

What it means: These standards address editing and publishing work. Teachers and students may work together to edit drafts of written pieces, focusing on specific suggestions to make the writing more clear or informative. The standards also address sharing written work using a variety of digital tools. 

Research to build and present Knowledge 

What it means: Students will be working with classmates on research and writing projects. Together they’ll collaborate to gather information and present findings in an accurate way. 

Range of Writing 

What it means: The range of writing standards begin in Grade 3, and simply refers to the goal of having students write routinely over extended periods of time. 

Speaking and Listening

What it means:  Listening involves receiving and understanding spoken language, while speaking involves expressing thoughts, ideas, and emotions clearly and fluently.

Math

Counting and Cardinality (kindergarten only)

What it means: Students will learn the number names and the count sequence. They will count to tell the number of objects, understanding that the last number name said, tells the number of objects counted. Students will compare numbers using greater than, less than, or equal to. 

Operations & Algebraic Thinking 

What it means: Mathematical operations include addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Algebraic Thinking refers to the ability to generalize patterns in math as well as analyze the relationship between numbers on each side of the equal sign. 4+2=2+4 

Number & Operations in Base Ten 

What it means: In a “Base-10” number system, each digit of a number has a value ranging from 0 to 9 depending on its position. The place value or the positions of the numbers are based on powers of 10. Students will work on understanding and manipulating digits within this system. 

Fractions (3rd through 5th Grade) 

What it means: Students will learn to apply the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with fractions.

Measurement and Data 

What it means: Students will work with standard and non-standard units of measurement to include: time, weight, height, temperature, length, speed and more. They may begin using paper clips, cubes or hands prior to working with standard measurement units such as inches, pounds, hours, etc. Students will also work with data, a collection of information, using graphs and charts for analysis. 

Geometry 

What it means: Students will work with shapes and figures. They will learn how to draw, measure and compare them.

Progress Reports and Report Card Schedule for Secondary (Sixth Grade Center, Urbana Middle School, Urbana High School)

Progress 1: Progress reports emailed to families via Skyward on September 12, 2025

Progress 2: Report cards given to families at conferences on October 9 and 10, 2025 (mailed if a conference isn’t scheduled)

Progress 3: Progress reports emailed to families via Skyward on November 14, 2025

Progress 4: Report cards mailed on January 8, 2026

Progress 5: Progress reports emailed to families via Skyward on February 6, 2026

Progress 6: Report cards given to families at conferences on March 12 and 13, 2026 (mailed if a conference isn’t scheduled)

Progress 7: Progress reports emailed to families via Skyward on April 24, 2026

Progress 8: Report cards sent home with students on May 29, 2026