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It’s early in the school year. You’re reviewing student math work and noticing some red flags—math concepts that should be solid just aren’t there. But when you check their file, you see As and Bs from last year. So what now?

In this episode, we unpack the tension many educators face: How do you trust your math professional judgment while navigating a system that sends mixed messages? How do you raise concerns for math progress without being seen as “the bad guy”? And how do you advocate for students without damaging trust with them—or with families?

We offer honest reflection, practical ideas, and a few words of reassurance for educators who are trying to do right by kids while staying true to their instincts.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Why early-year assessment in math doesn’t always align with previous report cards

• How to trust your professional judgment in math class without jumping to conclusions

• Strategies for addressing math learning gaps while preserving student and family relationships

• What to consider before labeling a student “at risk”

• How to start the year with clarity, compassion, and confidence

Attention District Math Leaders:

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Ready to design your math improvement plan with guidance, support and using structure? Learn how to follow our 4 stage process. https://growyourmathprogram.com 

Looking to supplement your curriculum with problem based lessons and units? Make Math Moments Problem Based Lessons & Units

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Jon Orr: Okay, it is summer if you’re listening to this at the time that we’re recording it and the time that it goes live and you’re coming into the new school year. You’re getting ready, you’re starting things up. Now in this episode, we’re gonna be unpacking some assessment ideas and one of the pebbles that rattles around in our shoe or could rattle around in our shoe is that let’s say you have a new group of students.

you’re looking at a particular student and you go back and you’re seeing what they’re, you know, where they’re performing currently or what you’re assessing what their gaps are and their learning skills or specifically the content standards. And then you go and look at the old report card from the previous year and maybe you didn’t teach them. And what you’re seeing now versus what you’re seeing then is not lining up. You’re kind of seeing like, my gosh, they were getting

As and B’s or progressing well or meeting the standard and now it’s the same standard in the next grade level. But all of sudden it’s like wait a minute there’s a vast difference here and it’s like there’s a disconnect here like like normally from your experience you’re seeing like that usually doesn’t make that might not happen but you’re seeing it happen. So in this episode we want to talk about like what do you do like what do you do about talking to the student. What do you do about.

communicating this to the parent? What do you do about communicating this to the previous teacher? Because it’s gonna, maybe it’s happening year to year to year where you’re continually assessing where it’s different than the previous teacher’s assessment and you’re noticing this. So let’s talk about that event. Let’s dig in. Where do you wanna start?

Yvette Lehman: This is a legitimate fear I have. I feel like I see myself, you know, I guess I hold myself to a really high standard when it comes to having a deep understanding of the provincial standard. Maybe I’m too rigorous in my expectations, I’m not sure, but I do have a fear that, you know, I’m gonna be back in the classroom and my expectations are going to be high, they’re going to be rigorous, and I’m gonna be the bad guy.

I’m gonna come in and be like, all those A’s you were getting last year and the year before, I’m already, you know, it’s a month in, two months in, I’ve gathered significant amount of diagnostic data, I have evidence of student thinking, and I’m thinking to myself, I just am not seeing that same achievement in front of me right now. And I’m worried, like if there’s a significant difference that I’m the bad guy now, and…

I guess I’m seeking advice in this episode on how to navigate that situation where you stay true to your own integrity, but without, you know, damaging relationships or, or, you know, giving this perception that maybe you’re too rigorous, your expectations are too high. Like how do you, yeah, you’re the tough teacher, you know, everybody else was right and you’re the one who, you know, is expecting too much at this grade level.

Jon Orr: Hmm. You’re the tough teacher. You’re the tough marker.

Now, is this just a fear or is this like something that you’re like, I’ve, experienced this. Like, this is something that is, is something that’s always there when I’m teaching in the classroom.

Yvette Lehman: It’s actually something that I coach teachers with a lot. I hear this often from teachers where they are struggling, particularly new teachers, because new teachers often come in and they’re receiving a lot of professional development and there’s a lot more coaching for them. And maybe they’re even having the opportunity to attend more sessions because they’re a new teacher.

And then they’re sitting down and they’re looking at the evidence that they’ve collected going into the first term report card or the first progress report. And they’re saying, okay, I don’t believe that this child is meeting provincial standard, but look at their marks from last year. They had all A’s.

Jon Orr: Right. And your fear isn’t that to actually reflect what they’re actually showing against the, you know, further criteria against the provincials or the standard, the state standard or whatever your standards are. Your fear is the backlash you would receive being the one that’s now going your history. And mostly you’re probably thinking parent student. The most, you know, the history here is, that you’ve been doing okay, but now all of sudden you’re not. And now you’re like,How do I have these conversations?

Yvette Lehman: it exactly like what does that conversation look like how do you maintain you know so you’re not the child doesn’t feel defeated if they’ve been accustomed to receiving high marks in the past and now all of a sudden you know they’re feeling deflated because you’re presenting them with the C when they their own perception of themselves as a learner is that they’re an A student

Jon Orr: Right. Now unpack, unpack your assessment practices. Like I think this is an important component, right? Because if, let’s start with the student. If we’re going to be talking about like, we don’t want to deflate the student’s sense of being a mathematician and where they are. Tell me about like, cause I can imagine, you know, if I’m listening to this conversation right now, you’re already thinking about your own assessment.

practices, you’re thinking about like, do I communicate grades to students? How do I, how do I communicate, you know, where students are on stand? How do I communicate the success criteria, so that students know how to demonstrate grade level standards? like, all of these factor in, because I, I’m imagining some classrooms where, you know, our listeners who probably not these classrooms, but they’re working with people who are very much maybe running classrooms. I’m just thinking about some of the classrooms my students have sat in, whereas they don’t

get a lot of feedback or criteria around how do we reach a standard or how to reach level four or level three or whatever criteria you’re assessing here. And then all of a sudden it’s like, here’s my mark. Or it’s the marks on a test that I’ll just get added up or averaged. And I think the communicating up to the point before this mark goes home or this mark gets put in front of students as a summative assessment, I think,

I think where your concern is, like, here’s the summative assessment across these standards. I don’t want to deflate this student. So help us understand, like, what does it look like for you now? And then there and therefore like maybe this is a non-issue.

Yvette Lehman: That’s a good question. feel like we talk all the time about assessment because we’re both so passionate about it. I mean, what I believe good assessment practices is if I was going into a classroom for the first time, it’s my first month with students, I really think.

engaging in diagnostic assessments is helpful, particularly interviews. Like I have quoted this before, I think on the podcast, I’m gonna say it again. Like Marilyn Burns, I saw her speak once and she said that the only way to see a child’s mathematical soul is to sit with them one-on-one. So I like to spend that first month interviewing students, sitting with them one-on-one, helping my like understand their mathematical thinking. In the past, I’ve used Marion Small’s prime assessments.

as just a kind of an indicator of okayness and really to just get them to know the student in their thinking. So imagine I’ve already done that. And I, for this student in particular, I’m already, I have some concerns that they might be at risk. So the thing about an assessment like prime is that it pulls back from previous grade levels. It’s not isolated to just the, you know, mastery of the standards at that grade level. pulls back two, three years.

So imagine I’ve been sitting with students one-on-one engaging in this type of interview style assessment and I have some concerns with the students, know, foundational understanding of core concepts. As for my, you know, other assessment practices, just, you know, as we both know, like formative assessment is something that is embedded daily into our practice. Like we’re constantly giving students an opportunity to show what they know, provide feedback. And so there’s ongoing feedback along the way.

But I also do firmly believe that there is a place in the math classroom for like an independent, now show me what you have retained and mastered that you can do on your own, not in collaboration with your peers, just you with this concept. And whether that’s paper, pencil or interview, you know, might depend on the learner. But I do need the student to be able to demonstrate what they can do. And I also think that here in Ontario, right, we have our achievement chart.

And we know that like the questions can’t just be knowledge questions. There needs to be different levels of cognitive demand on that summative assessment so I can really see whether the student has demonstrated mastery of that particular learning goal or overall expectation at that point in time. And like that’s the best evidence I have at that point in time of where they are relative to the provincial standard or the state standard. And that would be the evidence that I would use. It would be my summative evidence that I would use.

to determine a single grade that needs to go on the report card for math for term one. I’m also a believer that all of the formative shouldn’t count against them. So it’s like, if you’re not getting it, not getting it, need more time, need more time, need more time, but now finally on the summative, you can demonstrate that you can independently achieve the success criteria for that particular learning goal, we’re good. That to me is like your evidence. But imagine this is a student who I’ve done all of this with.

You know, I’ve sat with, I’ve interviewed, I’ve provided feedback along the way. I’ve given them some type of summative independent assessment around this cluster of expectations. And they’re just, they’re not demonstrating that they have proficiency that’s meeting the provincial standard at this point in time. Their port card mark’s gonna look like a C or a D, but they’ve been getting A’s or B’s in the past.

Jon Orr: Right, right. And so you’re, because it sounds like you’re gonna have a lot of confidence of what this grade actually is because of the way that you’ve just unpacked the varying forms of assessment, the varying forms of evidence you’ve collected along the way for this student. And so if we’re talking about communicating this to the student, what are things that you’re,

first worried about, I think we already articulated, you’re worried about like damaging their confidence that they’re good at math, but in being a mathematician, so knowing that you have all of this evidence, what are your thoughts on sharing that back to the student when it’s report card time? Like what are some of the practices you’re doing or have done in the past to say, hey, here’s this, the report’s coming out, is it gonna be a shocker?

You know, like this is the part it’s like, or is the student be like, this is normal because I’ve seen this all the way through. And maybe the conversation isn’t with the student. It’s, you’re not worried about that conversation because of the evidence shared back and forth over the course of, you know, the month, two months, three months before, or, you know, even longer where before this report card gets released, it’s with some other, some other folks.

Yvette Lehman: think that’s a really good point. Like this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody. Like it shouldn’t be a surprise to the student. It shouldn’t be a surprise to the parent. It shouldn’t be a surprise to the learning support teacher if there needs to be additional support to help, you know, lift this child up. But there’s something about the black and white that goes home on the report card that holds such a weight.

You know, and I think that maybe that’s my fear. It’s like, although there would have been evidence all along the way, and I hope open communication. And I guess the other thing that I worry about is, so you’re right. Like I think that I would have evidence. I think though that if there was a big gap, you know, like imagine the student has been A’s two, three years, and now you’re like, this is like a C, maybe a D. Like if the gap was that big, I think I would start to question myself and I would want to seek.

another opinion. Like I would want to do some moderated marking with another grade level partner, either in my building or another building. I’d want to sit with last year’s teacher and basically come to the table and say, you know, clearly we have a big gap in our understanding right now. What can we do to bridge this gap? Maybe that teacher wants to sit and moderate the students work with me as well. Like I think that if it was that significant of a shift,

Jon Orr: Right, yeah, because I think you’re right. We’re getting to the part here where the real worry is how do we work together as a team so that this is not the shock to the parent, to the student, even when that first assessment or even that first formative assessment comes back to the student. So if you think, you’re right, because this shouldn’t be a surprise come report card time to the parent, to the student. You’ve communicated success criteria, and you’re making sure

you know, that they get the feedback and then timely fashion and you’re giving them steps to make, make improvements and, and you’re, you’re communicating that criteria to say like, this is how you can improve from here to here. Like all of this is happening in your classroom or in our classrooms that were, you know, we’re striving for assessment for growth. Like it’s not a shock to that, but where the question comes up, even when that first formative assessment comes up is, is how do you defend the teacher?

previously assessed this way, you’re assessing a different way. What’s that conversation look like without throwing them under the bus? With it because you’re feeling very confident about your assessment because you’ve got all of this evidence and you’ve looked at this, you know, this criteria, you’re like, well, wait a minute, is it me? Am I not assessing correctly? Or is it them? And and therefore, we need some more alignment here. So the real the real issue here is like, why is there not alignment? And meet amongst ourselves?

between, you know, assessing this standard in one year versus this standard in another year. Because if we can, if we can understand that, then the conversations with the parent, with the student are easier, right? It’s now you’re like, because you’re not all of sudden going like, well, this is the way that we’re assessing, because I’m assessing at grade level, and I don’t know what was happening last year. Like, that’s not the…

the line that you need to like have with the parent, even though you know teachers are saying that line to parents, which means like, we’re not playing as a team. We’re not here to like, we’re trying to like, we’re a community to strengthen mathematics, understandings, you know, across grade levels. And we’re not in the business of throwing our fellow colleagues under the bus. We need to like say, we’re having conversations to support, but there is a misalignment here. What do you think is like, obviously,

The more moderated marketing you can do as a team is the better alignment that can happen. Like this is loads of professional development that’s embedded in this type of work is because you’re not only seeing what in developing success criteria on a standard is that you’re doing that with your grade level team or with a teacher from last year and maybe next year and you’re trying to co-create like, what does this look like so that we’re all on the same page? Like that doesn’t just

helps you with assessment, helps you with understanding content, it helps you with making sure that you’re going to be, you know, using the right strategies or models when the times like it’s, it’s like the most important work you could do probably as a professional development structure.

Yvette Lehman: hundred percent agree and when you said you made the comment about you know I’m confident that I’m assessing based on the provincial standard I’m wondering about last year likely the truth is in the middle you know I always say that like likely

There’s a place in the middle of my belief and that other teacher’s belief and that’s the sweet spot where we can all come together and be aligned. And so I completely agree. I think we say this all the time, like how much moderated marking impacted our own practice and our own confidence to have these tough conversations. But you made a good point that it’s so valuable when it’s not just with your grade level team.

Like when you have an opportunity to do that vertical alignment where we’re working together to move students along a trajectory and we’re seeing the connections between like I’m imagining a really great, you know, like a sweet spot would be like third, fourth, fifth grade. Like there’s so much alignment in the curriculum there that if we could help teachers work collaboratively to see what growth looks like through those grade levels and what mastery or or what the benchmark is at the end of each grade level, how much stronger we’d be as a collective.

Jon Orr: Yeah, like if we can, if we, you’re right, if we can come up with that, the strength is there. And I think, I think where the disconnect lies in this is my own personal belief here is that even if, because if you do that work, what you’re, you’re bound to do is actually fix, I think the, one of the roots of the problem, which is, which is assessing based off learning skill versus understanding of the content standard. So, so what I mean by that is

is that I before we hit record, I remember we were talking we were kind of talking about like, well, I haven’t had a ton of pushback from parents or students when they get them on my report card and they compare it to last year’s report card. And probably because of 10 years of shifting my assessment practices, my marks might look better than last year’s report card. And that’s why maybe I don’t get that. But what I’m doing is doing what you’re doing, what you just articulated, which is like,

I’m not doing the, here’s your test. Here’s the mark or here’s the assignment and here’s the mark and it goes in my, my, my mark book. And then I look at, and then I got a zero in there because you didn’t hand anything in. And then I got another zero in here because you didn’t hand anything in. And, and maybe I’ve got this mark cause you handed it in late or you missed a day. So you get a, know, you get this mark here and I just average them. And all of sudden a mark, a mark goes into the mark book. Whereas what I think we’re doing

is we’re actually assessing based off their understanding on their standards and we have the success criteria and we’re going where are they on that and how can I develop my lessons in the opportunity so I can learn as much about that as possible and then push them towards the other end of that spectrum and when you’re engaging and thinking about your math experience for students in that way then what I was doing was I was collecting evidence I was taking observations in I was taking conversations in like you said

You’ve got formative assessment that plays a huge role. It’s not just summative assessment. And so when you factor that in and you’re seeing, I was seeing some of that growth and not just waiting for the summative assessment. So on the other end is like my students might, and I felt like my students were, I assessed by grade level, but I was collecting a lot of evidence to do that. Then they go to the next grade level and the teacher is not doing that. Then all of a sudden the marks might drop. And then that teacher now has to explain.

we’re not in alignment, not because maybe we’re not assessing based off the standard, is we’re not, or the grade, like what grade level looks like, is I think we’re not aligned because of the practices that go into collecting the evidence. Which is hard. Like this is bigger than just saying like, what does grade level look like? It’s like, well how are you collecting the evidence?

Yvette Lehman: Yeah, I hadn’t actually thought about that. Right, right. And could you see, how would you address that? Cause I think that is different than a disconnect in understanding what achievement looks like. It’s really a disconnect in, like you said, like your belief around assessment and the fact that students have multiple opportunities to demonstrate growth and that we’re not going to penalize students for things like an absence that they can’t control. So how do you bridge that gap?

Jon Orr: Yeah, like with the conversations with the student, the parent are easy because they seem like this is amazing. It’s like, my gosh, like we get multiple attempts to be assessed on a standard. We have a structure in place to kind of go like, if I didn’t achieve it yet, I’m now, I’ve got opportunities to showcase to the teachers some of the learning and it happens in this place, this place, and this place. And I can do it this way or this way or this way. And like we detail all of this in our assessment for growth course, which is inside the academy. And I think the conversations with the teacher though,

that is say that next grade level is having those open non-judgmental conversations just to say like, what does it look like when a student only does this from the test? just what are some of the policies you’re currently holding? what does that, like what is it that you’re hoping that that policy teaches or is doing that? Like, or helping that student understand?

Sometimes it is that like, what is the evidence that says they’re operating at grade level? Like these conversations are hard to get into because it’s like, what do we, what do we actually, how do we get into that conversation without feeling like we’re doing the coaching versus the telling or the say, this is the way that I assess. So sometimes I like to approach those as like, I need some help. I need to take a step and go like, I’ve been doing it this way. And I’m wondering like, what do you do?

to collect some evidence outside of just the test or you are only, you know, 100 % of the market is a test or is it like, you know, what does that look like for you? Here’s what it looks like for me and I learn a lot this way, but what does it look like for you? And really it comes down to like, what is the purpose of assessment for everyone? Like, what are you hoping to do with assessment itself? are you just looking at it as evaluation? So those conversations tend to get heated and are hard.

But I like to approach them as like a, need to learn even though I feel like I’m pretty confident about the way that we’re assessing, even though it’s policy here in Ontario. Right.

Yvette Lehman: Right. Yeah, that’s one thing we have working in our our favor is our growing success document definitely suggests this type of assessment, the fluid assessment. Okay, here’s my final reflection. I think it’s important to be integrist and I think that, you know, sometimes it’s easy to take the, let’s say the easy road out and inflate the mark because you’re

Jon Orr: You mean like, I look back, I’m gonna be the bad guy because they’re not reaching grade level and they were inflated marks. So I’m just gonna like.

Yvette Lehman: Right. Like I think that that is a path of least resistance that we sometimes, I mean, I’ve taken that path myself for sure. Like I have definitely taken that path where I really felt confident that it was not meeting the provincial standards. So that should have been a C on the report card, but I looked back and it was an A and I was like, okay, I’ll do a B minus, you know, because I just don’t want it to be that big of a gap. don’t want, I don’t feel confident to defend it, but I am, and I said this to you before we hit record,

Inflated marks concern me like massively. And so I think that when I’m back in the classroom, that’s something that I’m going to be willing to stand on, you know, and truly trust my professional judgment, seek consult from other teachers, look for opportunities to moderate so that I can confidently say, yes, this is where the student is currently based on the evidence that I’ve gathered relative to the provincial standard at this point in time, always leaving the door open for improvement. But my concern about inflated marks,

is that it impacts the work ethic, the level of rigor. It doesn’t send out a signal to parents that there is a risk here and that maybe additional support is required. It’s hard to defend or advocate for a child to receive additional support or extra time when they’re getting A’s and B’s and everything looks fine on the report card. So I definitely think, you know,

Sometimes we do more harm than good when we’re not being transparent, but where they actually are achieving at this point in time relative to the standard. think a C is okay. Like a C with opportunity for growth and if it’s going to motivate and inspire and get all hands on deck to rally around this child to make sure they get the supports they need and the time and effort is put into ensuring that they’ve solidified their understanding by the end of the year, I’d rather see a C. on the mid-year report card that leads to an A or a B than to paint an inaccurate picture of their achievement.

Jon Orr: 100%, 100%. You always want that, that mark to reflect their current achievement on the standards, their current understanding of those standards. Like that’s the purpose of your grade. Like the, the report card grade, it should be an accurate reflection. The problem, right, is now what is accurate. And I think that’s, that’s where the, the collaboration of, of team members across schools, you know,

across multiple schools even, coming together to look at student artifacts and discuss what does it look like to get a grade here? Like what grade are we doing? And because those questions will lead to, well, what are we really assessing? What are we looking for? Like what is a level one, two, three, four look like? How do we develop this? How do we recognize it? What are the key look-fors? Most times it’s like a checklist.

You got two points for this question or three points for this question, but is it that, is that the most appropriate way to assess? And then what are we doing with that number once you have it? Like, what is it doing next? Like that’s those, those, those are two different conversations, but lumped together, right? It’s like, we’re going to assess by question so that we understand the mathematics. We understand what we’re looking for, but then what are we doing with those numbers as an overall? Are we averaging everything? Are we just putting numbers in a grade book and they don’t change?

What are we doing to use the evidence for growth or use the evidence for evaluation? And how does that all collaborate together? These are really important conversations that teams, schools, individual teachers need to reflect on because you have to then ask the question, what are my assessments really doing? And if I can get clarity on what are my assessments doing, those next, those questions, those ways.

all of sudden fix themselves. Cause you’re like, well, if this is what I believe about my assessment for students, then why am I doing it this way? Like, why am I locking this down or why, why are we, why are we giving these two marks and then averaging them? It’s, it, it all of a sudden brings up really important questions. And these are the questions that can shape your career. And I think they’re important to ask, but important to ask with each other and, and teams. And so that can help create the alignment and then maybe avoid some of these.

tough conversations in the future because there’s more alignment now. So, so even though they might be tough now, it’s like, let’s get together and have conversations. It’s, easy if you just bring artifacts together and go like, what are we going to, what are we going to grade this? You know, and all of sudden that’s where the conversation can start. but you got to structure that time to get together. So that’s, I hope, I don’t know, Yvette, I think, I hope that we we’ve given some insight as always, we don’t have full answers here for you.

You know, we’ve got some insights from our experience. We’ve got some insights from research. We’ve got some insights to pass on, but we’re only two. We’re only two. We wanna hear from you. You if you’re getting, you you got a notification about this episode in an email, hit reply on that email and let us know what your thoughts on your assessment practices or tough conversations you’ve had with parents or students or previous teachers and how those went. We would love to hear those stories.

and we’d love to learn from you as well. If you’re on YouTube, write a comment on the comment button there. If you’re listening in a podcast player, then make sure you hit subscribe, make sure you hit follow. And I think that sometimes there’s a messaging system inside there. I know there is on Spotify. You can leave us a message there, we’ll see it. So we wanna thank you for joining us here. We talked to all things assessment today and we do have a full assessment for growth.

course inside the Academy. can head on over to that Academy at makemathmoments.com forward slash Academy and you can register for the Academy and dig in to that full course on assessment for mathematics.

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