By Kelly Cantwell
Editor
The Ohio Department of Education’s School Report Cards released on Sept. 15 show a system in transition.
The report cards reflect challenging expectations, new tests and higher achievement targets, said Superintendent of Public Instruction Paolo DeMaria in a press release.
Most districts in the county received worse letter grades than last year in three measures or more and made progress in four categories or less, although that might not be the result of a lack of effort on the districts’ part.
In addition, the Felicity-Franklin Local School District was the only district in the county that did not have a worse letter grade on the “indicators met” measure of the Achievement component, however, the district received an F on the measure both years.
School districts will not be impacted by low report card scores until the 2017-2018 school year, due to “safe harbor,” an Ohio law that suspends the consequences of the new state tests in mathematics and English language arts for the 2014-2015, 2015-2016 and the 2016-2017 school years, according to the ODE website.
Dave Gibson, superintendent of Felicity-Franklin, described performing well on report cards as “chasing a moving target” because of how often the state tests seem to change.
“This makes it hard to prepare,” Gibson said.
He added that when all the districts are struggling, one has to look at the measures themselves, not just the district.
This is the third set of measures in the past three years, said Keith Millard, Batavia Local School’s superintendent.
“I think that the report card is in a significant state of transition in the state of Ohio,” he said.
While the district is paying attention to the results, they are only part of what they are looking at, Millard said.
Felicity-Franklin did not receive a worse letter grade on any measure compared to last year, and the district received a better letter grade in five categories: the K-3 Literacy component and the four measures of the Progress component.
“Sometimes it’s a matter of what you’re doing begins to pay off,” Gibson said.
He added, “There’s a lot of celebration that goes with that when you look at the growth of our kids.”
Batavia did not see any letter grade improvement over last year. Millard said this year the district brought in a new K-8 math series, is continuing to focus on the 9-12 writing initiative and is continuing to invest in data tools, especially data on gap closing.
Millard does not take much away from the report cards, as the state keeps changing the way the district’s performance is measured. He is looking at this year’s results as the first baseline year of data and is setting long-term improvement goals.
“We are committed to meeting the unique needs of every learner,” Millard said.
When parents and community members look at the report card data, Gibson hopes that they will look at performances across the county and find that eye opening. Clermont County schools are good schools, Gibson said, but none of them are performing at what the state wants.
When parents of Felicity-Franklin students look at the district’s report card, Gibson hopes that they look at the district’s gains.
“We’re real proud of our progress,” he said.
Gibson added, “If we keep growing kids than the other stuff will take care of itself.”
Quality of education is measured by much more than the report cards, and the reports cards are not the only piece of data the Batavia district looks at, Millard said.
“You need to take it with a grain of salt,” he said when asked what parents should take away from it.
The Achievement component of the report card has two measures: performance index, which shows how well students are doing on state tests, and indicators met, which shows how many students are passing state tests. This is the first year districts received a letter grade on the overall achievement component, rather than just the two measures.
The Progress component looks at the growth students have made based on past performances and the Graduation Rate component tracks the percentage of students who graduate in four or five years, according to the ODE website.
The Gap Closing component shows if schools are meeting performance expectations for “vulnerable” students in English language arts, math and graduation.
“Ensuring success for every child means that schools must close the gaps that exist in the achievement between groups of students that may be based on income, race, ethnicity or disability,” the website states.
The K-3 Literacy component tracks how well schools and the district are working with struggling readers in kindergarten through third grade.
This is the first year districts have received a grade in the Prepared for Success component, which examines how well the district is preparing its students to take advantage of future opportunities. This component uses measures such as college entrance exam remediation-free scores, an honors diploma or an industry-recognized credential, according to the ODE website.
Keith Kline, West Clermont Local School District superintendent, shared his thoughts on the district’s results and laid out a plan for future improvements during the school board meeting on Sept. 12.
“I think we’re all very disappointed in the performance of where we are right now,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do and we also have a lot of really outstanding folks in place to get that work done and raise the expectations; I’m an expectations kind of guy and I really think we’ve got to set a new level of expectations across the board for all of us; and I’m working on that, with some accountability checks in place to make sure that’s happening.”
He added, “If there was a silver bullet, we’d be doing it and probably out touring the country telling everyone else about it. There is no one answer when you’ve got a problem that’s as complex as teaching learning, so we’re really trying to aggressively pursue different approaches and we’re coming at it in different ways to move our kids and make sure that they’re prepared for life after West Clermont.”
He closed by saying he’s excited about the upcoming school year.
“I feel like we have a lot of opportunities to grow and learn, and learning is what we’re all about; we’re a learning organization and we need to learn from the top to the bottom.”
The district, a member of the Greater Cincinnati School Advocacy Network, feels that the state has gone past the federal reach and impacted daily instructions, Kline said in a press release. He described testing as “excessive.”
Kline also expressed his belief that teachers and administrative staff at a local level can make better decisions than state employees, which he feels should stick to federal guidelines in the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Correction, 9/29: An earlier version of this story included a graphic with incorrect information. The original chart showed Milford Exempted Village School’s grade in 4-year Graduation Rate as an F in the 2014-2015 school year. Milford received an A in that category for that year.