A review of British Columbia’s legislation and annual reports from the Ministries responsible for K-12 education in BC has found six different purposes of the report card over time. They include: teacher accountability; assisting the child to evaluate growth; encouragement of parents to co-operate with the teacher; improvement of home and school relationship; easy comparison of students to each other and to standards; and transferability of student achievement information. Four teachers interviewed identified the purpose of the report card as communicating to parents what their child is doing in the classroom and they are using e-portfolios to do so. They found that e-portfolios can allow for more personalized reporting for teachers and students and can address many of the legislated purposes of the report card but do not easily address comparison of students to each other and to standards or transferability of student achievement information. / Graduate / 0515 / 0520 / sbeloin@uvic.ca