Principal Newsletter: Sharing Spring Academic Data with Families

Academic data newsletters are the ones principals most often write badly. The temptation to soften disappointing results, to foreground the positives and bury the challenges, produces newsletters that families stop trusting. The one that reports honestly and connects the results to real instructional decisions is the one that builds credibility over time.

What Was Measured and How

Begin with the assessment itself. What test or measure produced these results? Is it a state standardized assessment, a nationally normed benchmark, a district-designed measure, or a school-level tool? What does it measure: reading comprehension, mathematics reasoning, science literacy, writing? When was it administered? Families who do not know what the assessment measures cannot interpret what the results mean. Name it before you report it.

Proficiency Results

Give the actual numbers. What percentage of students met or exceeded the proficiency standard in each assessed subject? How does that compare to the same assessment last year and the year before? How does it compare to the district average or state average if that information is available and meaningful? Use specific numbers, not characterizations. "Sixty-two percent of students met the reading proficiency standard" is more useful to a family than "our reading scores showed strong performance." Strong compared to what?

Growth Results

Report growth separately from proficiency. A growth measure shows how much students improved from one assessment point to the next, independent of where they started. A student who entered fifth grade reading at a second-grade level and is now reading at a fourth-grade level showed strong growth even if she is not yet proficient. Schools that report only proficiency hide important information about which students are making progress. If your assessment produces a growth measure, report it. If it does not, describe what other evidence shows that students are moving forward.

Where Progress Was Strongest

Name the student groups and subject areas where you saw the most growth or the strongest proficiency results. Be specific. Third-grade mathematics. English language learners in reading. Students receiving intervention support. Naming the specifics lets families of those students understand what their child's group accomplished. It also signals that you are analyzing data at a level of granularity that goes beyond school-wide averages.

Where the Work Is Not Done

Name the gaps directly. If eighth-grade writing proficiency declined, say so. If a particular student group is significantly below the school-wide average, name it. If the school-wide results fell short of the improvement target you communicated last fall, acknowledge that explicitly. Families who receive honest reporting of challenges trust the principal more, not less. The response plan matters more than the result, and you cannot present a credible response plan without first being honest about the result.

What the School Is Doing in Response

Name the specific instructional changes you are making for next year based on these results. Which curriculum adjustments are happening? What professional development are teachers receiving? What additional supports will students who are below grade level receive? How will you monitor whether the changes are working? Families who can read the data and then read a specific, concrete response plan understand that the school is using data to improve rather than simply reporting it.

Using Daystage for Academic Data Communication

Daystage makes it easy to build a spring data newsletter with subject-area summaries, growth and proficiency comparisons, and a principal message that connects the results to next year's instructional plan. Send it before the school year ends so families have the context heading into summer.