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Academics
Matthew C. Perry Schools have been fully accredited since 1969 by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA), and the elementary school was re-accredited by a visiting team in February, 2008. Parents are encouraged to call the school on days when their child may be absent from school. Parents and sponsors are expected to provide satisfactory explanation for any absence from school and any release from school during the scheduled school day. Excused Absences: Absence from school may be necessary and is excused under certain conditions such as: illness, family emergencies, religious observances, family trips, and medical appointments that cannot be arranged at a time when school is not in session. When returning from an excused absence a parent must accompany the child and sign them into the main office, or a note providing an explanation is required. Unexcused Absences: A student absent from school without the permission of his/her parent/sponsor is unexcused. The parent/sponsor will be formally notified by the principal when a student has two unexcused absences and on the occasion of every subsequent unexcused absence. Tardiness: Students should not arrive at the school prior to 0730. At 0730 the ES Gym will be open and students will be able to gather there. Students arriving after the start of school in the morning must check in at the Main Office to obtain a tardy slip before being admitted to the classroom. A parent or other adult must accompany and sign in students arriving more than ten minutes late. This is for the safety of your child and to ensure that your child has been under proper supervision. Students who receive two unexcused tardies within 5 school days will serve a one-day lunch recess detention and parents will be notified. Our current demographic information can be viewed as a pdf file. (You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader © to view and print this document.) Kindergarten - Grade 3 Students in the primary grades do not receive traditional letter grades. The following codes are used instead to inform parents of their child's progress in skill attainment:
Marking codes are used for special classes (Art, Music, Host Nation, and Physical Education):
Grades 4 - 6 Grading guidelines for students in grades 4 - 6 are as follows. The use of a + and - may be used with the letter grade at the discretion of the teacher.
A letter grade will be given for each major curriculum area: Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies and Science. Report Cards will also record student growth in Health, Life Skills and Social Development. It is DoDDS policy to assign homework, as appropriate, to all students capable of completing assignments. Homework assignments are reinforcements from classroom curricular areas and are assigned to support student learning. Assigned homework will reinforce instruction accomplished in class; it should not introduce new or unfamiliar concepts or skills and should be designed to meet the needs and abilities of individual students. The established guidelines for appropriate ranges of hours per week of homework are: 2 - 4 hours (for grades 1 - 3) and 5 - 6 hours (for grades 4 - 6). For more information about DoDDS administrative instructions for homework, please see the official policy statement. (You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader © to view and print this document.) Students will be recognized at the end of each semester for maintaining a high GPA. Any student with an all A report card will be on the Principal's Honor Roll. Students with all As and Bs in the major curriculum areas will be on the Honor Roll. Any student with a C or below is disqualified for honor roll, regardless of their GPA. The Information Center serves both the elementary and high school students and teachers. Our staff includes the Elementary School Information Specialist, the High School Information Specialist, and our library technician. Our library is open school days from 7:30am to 4:00pm. We have an online library catalog, our Library World program, which gives students and faculty the ability to locate books and other library material. Book checkout for students is 2 weeks, though books can be renewed if students have not finished reading them. It is important to return books on time, so please encourage your child(ren) to do so. DoDDS also subscribes to SIRS Discoverer, an online magazine service, which gives our students access to articles from a large number of periodicals, from Ranger Rick to Children’s World and the Dallas Morning News. It also includes an almanac, encyclopedia, dictionary, and thesaurus for student use. The Placement Committee is an advisory board for the Principal in making recommendations for grade retention, grade acceleration, and acceptance into the Gifted Education program. The PC is composed of classroom teachers, counselors, content specialists, and the gifted resource teacher. Meetings are held at a minimum of one time each month, and parents and classroom teachers of children being discussed are invited to attend the meeting. After reviewing documentation and statements concerning the issues at hand, the committee will make a recommendation to the Principal. The Principal has the responsibility for the final placement decision. Our school has a well-rounded program of instruction extending from Sure Start through sixth grade. Emphasis is placed upon developing responsibility and positive attitudes in students, while helping them to experience success at school. Our language arts/English program beginning in Kindergarten is a literature-based program that blends phonics and whole language instruction. The main feature of this curriculum is a systematic literature program that is meaning-centered and based on intensive reading, writing, speaking and listening. Integrating all the language arts can help students develop the type of thinking skills they need to become informed and effective leaders. Mathematics, science, social studies (which includes history and geography), and health are included in each grade level according to DoDDS guidelines standards. In addition to these classroom subjects, students have classes taught by specialists in music, art, Japanese culture, physical education and computers. Also on staff are: a school counselor, a school psychologist, a nurse, a teacher of the learning impaired, a teacher of the speech-impaired, a teacher for preschoolers with disabilities, a gifted education teacher, an English as a second language teacher, and two literacy specialists who are available to meet the needs of our students. In addition to our preschool program for children with disabilities, we have a Sure Start program for children who are four years of age. This program is similar to the Head Start Program in the states. The program requires an application that is rated by a panel of professionals to determine if the child meets the prerequisites required to participate in the program. Applications are available at the main office. For additional information , or if you have questions about this program, please contact the school’s main office. Progress Reports and Report Cards Mid-term progress reports keep parents and students aware of academic progress through the first half of the academic quarter. Students with failing grades will receive mid-term progress reports; individual teachers may provide progress reports for all students. Parents are encouraged to contact their children's teacher to find out their classroom policy. Computerized report cards are mailed to parents at the end of every nine-week quarter, with the exception of the first quarter, when parent-teacher conferences are held for all students. When parent-teacher conferences are scheduled, report cards will be available at the school. Students must attend 20 days in a quarter in order to receive a report card for that marking period. Reading Counts (RC) is part of the reading program for our Continuous School Improvement (CSI), and is included in both the independent reading and technology portions of our plan. The purpose of RC is to provide reading practice at an appropriate level for each student. How do we know what books they can read to start out? Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) test gives us a starting reading range for a student. This means that the student will be reading materials that are within his/her comfortable reading range. Once we know that, students begin reading books. Once they read a book, they can then take an RC test, which tests their comprehension of the book read. We now have 2,397 Reading Counts tests, on levels from 0.3 to 13.5, on books available in our information center. We encourage students to let us know what titles they would like to see added to the list. We would like to include their favorite books and authors whenever possible, as this adds to their enjoyment of reading. You as a parent are vital to the success of this program. Your continued support will make an important contribution to your child’s academic career!
MC Perry's Standardized Test Scores, Writing Assessment Scores, SAT Scores, and MC Perry can be found on the DoDEA Test Data webpage. |
