By Allison Grande and Nina Sen

Students are no longer the only ones receiving report cards.

Now schools are being graded as well and not everyone is happy with the scoring system.

Last week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein introduced the brand new Progress Reports for the city’s public elementary, middle, and high schools. Each school was given a letter grade from A through F based on a weighted improvement in three categories: student performance (30 percent), student progress in academics (55 percent) and school environment (15 percent).

Elementary and middle schools in District 10, which includes the Norwood News’ readership area as well as Riverdale, scored more As than any other district in the city. Even with that measure of success, the progress reports were met locally with mixed reactions from educators, politicians and community leaders.

"I think the concept is great – we give [our] students grades – but the math [involved with making overall school grades] is too complex," said PS 94 Principal Diane Daprocida, whose school received a C.

For local Council Member Oliver Koppell, who is strongly opposed to the new system, the main problem is that the results are too simplistic and schools are not ranked in enough categories. Because the three categories come together to create just one letter grade that is submitted to the public, Koppell said many people focus on the grade and not the factors that create it.

"When we give a report card to kids these days, we don’t just give them one grade in one subject," Koppell said.

Marvin Shelton, president of the Community Education Council in District 10, also feels that the scores are unbalanced because they focus on only a few select areas. The new evaluation method, he said, emphasizes the improvements of traditionally low achieving schools.

The report, in fact, gives extra credit to schools that improved over the year, which critics say unfairly penalizes a school already demonstrating high performance levels because there’s not as much room for improvement.

With that in mind, Koppell, who represents Riverdale, Woodlawn and Norwood, is also concerned these grades may negatively impact schools in middle class neighborhoods where parents have the option of whether or not to send their children to public schools. Koppell said lower grades in these areas may cause some parents to remove their children from public schools.

A recent editorial in the New York Times echoed Koppell’s opinion, saying measuring progress was commendable, but the way the city’s doing it, with just one letter grade, is dangerous. "The practice of giving, say, an F, to an otherwise high-performing school that lags in student improvement for a single year stigmatizes the entire school and angers parents," the editorial stated.

At a press conference announcing the new school progress reports, Klein said, "Schools can’t improve without first knowing exactly what they’re doing well and what’s not working."

But local principals are still on the fence about the benefits of this new grading system.

Daprocida likes the concept of a progress report. But she was disappointed that very few staff and parents responded to a survey the Department of Education distributed last May that played a major role in determining the school’s environment score.

At PS 226, which received a B, Principal Gloria Darden is still undecided about the report. Although she said it’s a good summation of the school’s work over the year, Darden is still unsure if the results will change how her University Heights school is run on a daily basis.