Reporting practices used by school systems serving elementary age, educable mentally retarded children were determined and reporting techniques evaluated. All the Minneapolis-St. Paul school systems submitted specimen report cards, and 91 of a possible 124 teachers in 23 school systems completed a questionnaire appraising common reporting practices. Findings were that about half of the systems used regular report cards. Half used a special report card, while a small number used narrative reports. Written reports were generally sent four times yearly. All of the teachers reported having parent conferences; a few reported home visits to all pupils. The teacher questionnaire indicated the following: regular report cards are concise, simple to use, and time saving, but are not applicable to special classes and are subject to misunderstanding; special report cards share all the advantages of the regular report and none of its disadvantages; narrative reports are exact, individualized, and applicable, but are time consuming and provide no continuity; conferences are accurate and of help to the parents, but are time consuming; and home visits provide the teacher with useful information, but lack privacy and frankness. (DF)