2023 state report cards include overall scores

State report cards released Thursday now include overall ratings for districts. Under the newest scoring system, schools are graded on a five-star scale, with one being the lowest and five the highest in each component and overall. Overall scores can include half-stars. Elyria Schools scored an overall two-and-a-half stars this year, the first school year to include an overall score. It scored two stars in every other component, with notes from the state that it needs support to meet standards. Superintendent Ann Schloss said the district doesn't need any of the state's data to know where it needs to put in work, but that the snapshot and the scores do not provide the full picture — like growth in early literacy or value-added data that a low star count doesn't highlight. Natalie Matthews, associate superintendent of academic services, agreed. She said Elyria Schools made tremendous growth in English and Math within its own district compared to scores released last year — but the progress component compares the Pioneers to other schools in Ohio. Data within the progress component, which measures how groups of students grew academically compared to statewide expectations, showed all Elyria students met state standards in English Language Arts, and middle school students met or exceeded state standards. But at the high school, students fell short of state expectations for Algebra, Geometry and English II. "As far as our data, we did relatively well with our value-added progress, but yet we only got two stars," Schloss said. "And what we have to remember in figuring out this calculation is it's like a bell curve — they look at where everybody is and then they compare you to others." The other metric the state report card doesn't measure is that students are still trying to regroup from a three-year-long pandemic and the struggles and crises faced in their personal lives, Schloss said. It also does not measure after-school programs or activities available to students. Elyria Schools students are more economically disadvantaged than they've been in years past, and its students have more mental health needs — all taking a potential toll on student achievement, Schloss said. "We took time last year to work on that with our families, that was a focus of ours," Matthews said. Elyria Schools also has a relatively high chronic absenteeism rate of 34 percent, part of its gap-closing measure. Chronic absenteeism is when a student misses at least 10 percent of instructional time in a given school year, according to the Ohio Department of Education. Students who were absent for state testing were marked as "zeros," Schloss said, further lowering the district's scores. "It hurts the district as a whole," she said. "It's why it's a snapshot in time." New this year, the state report card includes a "student opportunity profile" for each district — giving a slice of information on student-to-teacher, student-to-counselor and student-to-librarian ratios. It also looks at the number of students in all-day kindergarten and whether or not the district has one-to-one technology. Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro lauded the inclusion as information showing a fuller picture of what's happening inside the state's public schools. "Especially as our schools and students continue to make up for pandemic-related disrupted learning, the Student Opportunity Profile reports can also be important tools to direct specific supports and resources to specific schools that need them, so every child can receive the excellent public education they deserve — no exceptions," he said in a news release. Avon Superintendent Ben Hodge said the tests are not how schools should be measured. While his district was one of the highest scoring in Lorain County, he still had misgivings about whether the stars aligned to show the full picture. Avon Schools received an overall five-star rating, with five stars in achievement, gap closing, graduation and early literacy. It scored four stars in progress, showing "significant evidence the district exceeded student growth expectations," according to the state. "Our community expects high achievement, our teachers expect it and we demand it from our kids and they perform well because they come from great families and we have a great staff," Hodge said. "We are more interested in making sure kids are prepared for the next class that's not even state-tested measured." That may be a computer science course at the middle school to spark an interest and lead to other courses at the high school, he said, adding that 90 percent of its high school classes are not state-tested. "I know there has to be a bar set and I know the state has to do that, but there's a lot of other measures and lot of other things that we take into account when we want to look back and see how we do things in Avon." Like Elyria, Avon's scores also don't measure the high number of students participating in extracurriculars, he said. For Elyria Schools, the data from the state will be used to compare to local assessments or be drilled into to see where individual students may need further support. Schloss stood by her staff, and students that she was proud of the work done — including meeting students' social-emotional needs, Matthews said. "We're meeting our students' needs where they're at," Matthews said. said. "We're driven by where our students' needs are, not where test scores are." To find individual district and building data, visit https://reportcard.education.ohio.gov/ Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com.