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Progress of Henderson Students Unknown

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Children leave school for the holidays, but without report cards.
HENDERSON — Good evening and thanks for joining us. The traditional school year isalmost half way over, and some Vance County students don't know what kindof grades they're making. Neither does the school. One class of thirdgraders at Clarke Street Elementary has not received a report card all year.

"Where are the grades?" you might ask. They're in a teacher's grade bookwho no longer works at the school. The students started the year with asubstitute, had a permanent teacher for a while, then got anothersubstitute. The permanent teacher left just before report cards werehanded out and that made it tough to grade students.

As students at Clark Street elementary school get ready for a two weekholiday break, some parents don't feel like celebrating.Vearnette Yellock believes all children should have a report card becauseparents need to know whether their child is improving or deteriorating.

Some third graders started school here without a permanent teacher. Onewas hired, but abruptly quit, taking her grade book with her. So when itwas time for report cards in October, some third grade students did notget one.

Superintendent Wayne Adcock says no report cards were given becauseadministrators didn't feel comfortable with the teacher leaving, and thengiving out letter grades.

Adcock says the school's principal did arrange for the teacher's assistantto meet with parents.

"We made a skills checklist and showed them what the kids had been doing,their progress and what we needed to do in the next nine weeks," Adcockexplains.

Parent Elizabeth Turner says conferences aren't enough. Complicatingthings, Clark Street Elementary is one of the state's low performingschools. Third grade students who are now on their third teacher, willhave to take end-of-grade tests this Spring.

School officials say it's ideal for there to be one teacher in a classroomall year, but unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

The district has hired a permanent teacher for the third-grade class.She starts January 5th. The superintendent says the real issue here is how hard it is to attract and keep teachers.

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