MANSFIELD — Richland County school districts are largely meeting academic expectations, according to new school report cards released by the Ohio Department of Education.
The report cards, which analyze data from the 2021-2022 school year, are the first to include true scores of district performance since before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While most districts in the county met expectations in nearly every category, early literacy continues to be a challenge.
“Our K-3 literacy and ELA test scores across the board is one of the areas that we are working to improve,” Steven Rizzo, chief academic officer at Mansfield City Schools, said last week during a board of education meeting.
“Learning for our youngest kids remotely was really difficult.”
This year, O.D.E. dropped letter grades for traditional schools and districts and switched to a star rating system. One star means a district needs significant support to meet expectations, standards set and growth. Three stars means a district has met expectations. Five stars means a district has significantly exceeded expectations.
Mansfield was one of four county schools to miss the mark on literacy. Madison, Lucas and Plymouth-Shiloh also received less than three stars.
The new state report cards continue to measure achievement, progress, gap closing, early literacy and graduation rates. Most of the data used in these assessments comes from students’ standardized test scores.
Local administrators are quick to point out that these tests don’t tell the whole story of a school district.
“It’s a snapshot of one moment in time,” said Supt. Jim Grubbs of Crestview Local Schools.
“It doesn’t tell you how many community service hours our kids put in last year. It doesn’t tell you about the Leader in Me program, the seven habits of highly effective people that they’re learning.”
Rob Peterson, supt. at Madison, said he was generally pleased with the district’s grade card. Nevertheless, there are numerous aspects of educating a child that report card doesn’t measure.
“I am very proud of the education that we provide to the students in the Madison community, and I think that is reflected to an extent by the Local Report Card,” Peterson said.
“We provide them with instruction, but our teachers, support staff and administration provide our students with a tremendous amount of social and emotional support as well so that they can be successful.”
The Ohio Department of Education’s school report cards are based on six component ratings. One — College, Career, Workforce and Military Readiness — was not rated this year.
Achievement represents whether student performance on state tests met established thresholds and how well students performed on tests overall.
Progress looks closely at the growth all students are making based on their past performances.
Gap Closing is a measure of the reduction in educational gaps for student subgroups.
Graduation is a measure of the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate and the five-year adjusted cohort graduation rate.
Early Literacy is a measure of reading improvement and proficiency for students in kindergarten through third grade.
Clear Fork received three stars for achievement and progress and four for gap closing, graduation and early literacy. Administrators could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
Crestview received one star in progress, three stars in achievement and gap closing and four stars in graduation and early literacy.
“We already knew, way before this test, our ELA data and our math data is not where we want it to be,” Grubbs said.
“We’re never going to be happy with where our report card is unless it’s five stars.”
Grubbs said the district invested in new math curriculum two years ago, but the pandemic delayed the professional development teachers were supposed to receive on it.
Crestview teachers did professional development on a new English Language Arts curriculum last year and will complete the math portion this school year.
Grubbs said he’s optimistic the new curriculum will improve student learning and with it, the state report card.
Nevertheless, he said he doesn’t believe school report cards give a true picture of a district’s performance.
“It’s just a small reflection of a portion of what we do in education and it’s not an accurate one,” he said.
Lexington received two stars in progress, three in early literacy, four in achievement and five in gap closing and graduation.
Administrators could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
Lucas received two stars in early literacy, three in progress, four in achievement and gap closing and five in graduation.
“We’re always striving for improvement in our district, but I think what the report card showed is that during some pretty unique and tough times, our students continued learning and growing,” Supt. Brad Herman said.
“It shows we have a great school district and a great community.”
Herman said the results weren’t surprising, since Lucas tracks student learning over the course of the school year. The district began targeting learning gaps in early literacy last year by hiring more teachers to do one-on-one and small group work with students who need extra support.
Herman said the district has also been enhancing professional development for teachers and partnering with the Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center to examine its literacy curriculum.
Madison received two stars in early literacy, three in achievement and progress and four in gap closing and graduation.
“I think our overall success is a credit to and a reflection of the work done in our district with the students at all levels from preschool through high school,” Peterson said.
“Our students and their families, our teachers, our support staff, and our administration all worked very hard and very well together to overcome the challenges of the pandemic and continue to do so.”
While Peterson said he’s pleased with the overall results, Madison will keep striving to be better.
“We are certainly not satisfied with where we are as a district and will continue to put new systems and instructional pieces in place to further strengthen the education that we provide our students,” Peterson said.
Peterson said the district recently implemented a new English Language Arts curriculum at the elementary level.
“We will continue to assess our students’ literacy levels regularly throughout the year to guide instruction, to challenge our students and to provide them with interventions when needed,” he said.
The Ohio Department of Education’s school report cards are based on six component ratings. One — College, Career, Workforce and Military Readiness — was not rated this year.
Achievement represents whether student performance on state tests met established thresholds and how well students performed on tests overall.
Progress looks closely at the growth all students are making based on their past performances.
Gap Closing is a measure of the reduction in educational gaps for student subgroups.
Graduation is a measure of the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate and the five-year adjusted cohort graduation rate.
Early Literacy is a measure of reading improvement and proficiency for students in kindergarten through third grade.
Mansfield City received a two-star rating for achievement, three stars for progress, four stars for gap closing and one star each for graduation and early literacy.
Rizzo said the state’s new report card for Mansfield City Schools reinforces two key goals for the district – attendance and early literacy.
He added the district is in the process of evaluating its materials, interventions and strategies for teaching reading, something he called a “multi-year set of work.”
Ontario received three stars for early literacy, four for achievement and progress and five for gap closing and graduation.
Superintendent Keith Strickler said he was very pleased with Ontario’s results, but not surprised by them.
The district used some of its COVID-19 relief funds to purchase a program called iReady, which uses a series of tests to gauge students’ knowledge over the course of the school year.
“We assess the kids all year long and then we adjust our teaching based on how the kids are learning,” he said.
“As we assess the kid, if there is any deficiency, we have them do the lessons to bridge those gaps.”
Strickler said every student in the middle and high school had their own learning device during the first two years of the pandemic.
“During the pandemic, we didn’t do review,” he said. “We didn’t do little filler assignments. We keep going full tilt with new content.”
Plymouth-Shiloh received two stars for early literacy, three stars for achievement and five stars for progress, gap closing and graduation.
Superintendent Brad Turson said he was pleasantly surprised by the district’s five-star ratings. He called it a direct reflection of the quality of instruction and guidance teachers, building administrators and support staff provide each day.
“We will use the data from the State Report Card to continue to improve in needed areas and to best serve our students,” Turson added.
“This work will help us to build our continuous improvement culture throughout the district in the future.”
Plymouth is currently in the second of a four-year partnership with the Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center to address early literacy.
Shelby received three stars in progress, graduation and early literacy, four stars in achievement and five stars in gap closing.
“Coming out of the pandemic all the challenges are stacked in students and parents face over the past couple years, I thought our kids did exceptionally well,” Supt. Tim Tarvin said.
Tarvin praised the perseverance of Shelby students, as well as their teachers, support staff and families.
“We recognize that it’s a community effort, it’s a team effort for our report card,” he added.
“It begins with our staff and students but it ripples to parents and grandparents at home. We appreciate their support and their work with our students.
“We’re always going to strive to be better.”
Paul Walker, Shelby’s assistant superintendent, attributed the school’s success with early literacy to a curriculum that focuses on the science of reading. The science of reading focuses on phonics and phonemic awareness.
If a student’s literacy skills aren’t on target in the fall, the district meets with families and develops specialized reading plans.
“We’re assessing them and monitoring their reading progress,” Walker explained. “As a district, the more we can personalize our student’s education, the better the results.”
The district also used coronavirus relief funding to hire additional teaching staff, allowing for more small group intervention to address learning loss in younger grades.
