School Days: First Report Card

Cranston School Department, Cranston, RI. Report Card
Collection of the author, privately held. 2018

School Days: First Report Card

Some families save records, just in case. I never thought of my report cards as a record of my education until I went to Rhode Island College with plans to become a teacher. I discovered my mother had saved them in a paper folio in the china cupboard. When the plastic Ziploc bag was invented, I put them in order and threw out the folio. When we bought our own home, I took them and stored them in a filing cabinet. 

As you can see, the dates are important to my timeline and the information of promoted to Grade 2 was the last thing written on the front. Report cards were sent home with the child and a parent was required to sign them and send them back. The last page of the report card contains my mother and father's signatures. If I hadn't has samples of their handwriting this would have been a valuable resource.

I searched for the "start date" of September 9, 1953 and it was a Wednesday, which confirms that I walked upstairs and went from the Kindergarten classroom to first grade since the report card is for first grade, not Kindergarten.