Assessment

The purpose of assessment is to allow teachers to make decisions about the instruction for each child. Review or new lessons are needed when mastery has not yet been achieved.

Chiaravalle primarily uses authentic assessment that is developmentally appropriate at each level. Authentic assessment, in which students demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills, includes a combination of observation, portfolios, work samples, verbal responses, some tests, and an assessment of how the child is able to progress through the curriculum.

At the youngest ages, teachers take notes on each child's daily progress, observing areas of mastery and struggles. As students move into Elementary and Middle School, there is the expectation of mastery of academic subjects. Chiaravalle introduces additional assessment tools including portfolios of classwork, Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills [DIBELS] for reading assessment of Kindergarten and Lower Elementary students, and the standardized testing Iowa Test of Basic Skills [ITBS] in Upper Elementary and Middle School.

We hold Parent/Teacher conferences twice each year with narrative progress reports shared twice each year in Early Childhood and three times each year in Elementary and Middle School. By the time students are in Middle School, they are the leaders of this process through a student-led Student/Parent/Teacher conference.