A Mortlach mother has started a petition against a report card marking strategy, and it's gathering momentum on social media.  

In the petition she titled, Position to Refuse Outcome-Based Reporting for Grades 9-12 and Continue Marking by Way of Percentage, Jan Nelson says that the marking system is too broad and doesn't motivate her children. 

"My concern started with this topic when they started being implemented into the lower grades of the elementary," said Nelson, "and the outcomes that came into my home were not ones of motivation necessarily. The points at which they grade the children are too broad." 

Nelson has two children, going into grades five and nine this year. In the petition, Nelson wrote that her children have expressed frustration with the marking system. 

"My children have shared with me from the age of nine that they wish they were rated by a percentage," Nelson writes. "They find their report cards boring, especially when a teacher does not give personal feedback."

According to the Outcome Based ranking system, children can be ranked as Enriched Understanding, Developing as Expected, Beginning to Develop, or Time and Support Needed. 

The Saskatchewan education curriculum was updated to include the marking system in 2010.

According to a document published by the University of Saskatchewan and written by Darran Teneycke, superintendent of school operations for the Prairie South School Division, the new assessment system supports the learning of all students with a focus on the achievement of the largest number of students. It also states that historically, student assessment focused largely on the acquisition of content knowledge. Now assessment also focuses on what they can do with that knowledge. 

Nelson's petition has been shared from her personal Facebook page over 100 times.