State report cards see career, college readiness included in scores

Lorain County public schools saw mixed scores across the 2025 state report card released Monday. This year marked the first for the state's college, career, workforce and military readiness component counted in schools' star ratings, which are based largely on state tests taken by students during the 2024-25 school year and the Class of 2024 graduation information. This is the fourth year the state has used a 1- to 5-star rating system for districts in six different components. Seven of Lorain County's public schools saw decreases in their overall scores compared to the 2024 report card: Avon Lake, Elyria, Keystone, Midview, North Ridgeville, Sheffield-Sheffield Lake and Vermilion. Four districts saw overall increases: Amherst, Clearview, Firelands and Oberlin; and four remained unchanged from last year: Avon, Columbia, Lorain and Wellington. Elyria Schools Superintendent Ann Schloss suspects her district's 1-star rating in that readiness component, coupled with a decrease in its early literacy score, played a part in the school's overall loss of a half-star from 2024 to 2025. Ohio Department of Education and Workforce Director Stephen Dackin noted in his summary of the assessments that Monday's release reflects "the progress made and the work ahead." Ohio's literacy rates took a slight dip as the state began its implementation of the Science of Reading, an approach to teaching reading in an interdisciplinary way, focusing on phonics, phonemic awareness and other ways to instruct children to become better writers and readers. Elyria Schools is in its third year of implementing a literacy curriculum aligned with the state's Science of Reading guidelines. The district's third-graders have now had that curriculum in place since kindergarten, and show an 11 percent gain in the number of children reading at or above grade level as compared to last fall, according to the district. "The things we're doing right now, we're seeing make a difference," Schloss said. "It may not be as easy for everybody else to see, but come spend some time in our district — when we take (families) around, what they see going on day in and day out is unbelievable." Elyria Schools, like others in the county, struggles with transient students. Its most recent report card saw nearly 10 percent of all students considered mobile — meaning they moved into or out of the district during the school year — but that percentage is higher for students with disabilities (14.5 percent) Hispanic students (12.2 percent) and Black students (11.6 percent). Chronic absenteeism remains an issue as well, at just over 33 percent, but, like mobility, was higher for students with disabilities (39.8 percent), Black (43.2 percent) and Hispanic students (37.6 percent). Chronic absenteeism measures the number of students who miss more than 10 percent — or about 18 days of class — within a school year. The district also receives lower marks for state tests that families opt out of, or students do not take, Assistant Superintendent Courtney Griffiths said. Those scores are tabulated as "zeros" and can bring the schools' results down. Lorain Schools Assistant Superintendent Ross May saw bright spots in his district's report card — most notably its 3-star rating for post-high school readiness. Lorain Schools offers its students in-house career tech and early college programs. "Our work is really starting to show up there," May said, noting students are able to receive industry-recognized certificates for jobs after high school, or college credits that transfer to other institutions. He expects an increase in next year's graduation rate as well. While the 2025 report card remained at one star, unchanged from the year prior, he expects future report cards to show the success of newer programs at the high school like night school. The district's night school program started last school year, and will not show up until its 2026 report card as the graduation data is a year in arrears compared to other statistics. Night school allows Lorain High students to attend classes outside regular school hours, often allowing the teens to work or take care of their own children during the day and take classes toward graduation in the evening. The Ohio Education Association supported the inclusion of the readiness component in the state's report cards as a move away from high-stakes standardized tests as the sole measure of districts' successes. "For too long, these state report cards have been overly reliant on standardized test scores to determine ratings, ignoring the fact that these scores are a snapshot in time of a few stressful days in a student's life rather than a measure of their ability or mastery," OEA President Jeff Wensing said in a news release. "If Ohio is truly serious about creating learning environments where students can reach their full potential and become successful adults, we have to recognize some of the real, meaningful measures of success for our schools in the pursuit of that goal." On the other end of the spectrum, Lorain Schools lost a star in gap closing from 2024 to 2025. The gap closing component shows how well schools are meeting performance expectations for students in English language arts, math and graduation. The biggest hurdle for Lorain Schools, May said, is its chronic absenteeism — which impacts its progress, achievement and gap closing scores. Its chronic absenteeism rate stood at 59 percent last school year, according to its most recent report card, and its mobility rate was nearly 14 percent. Tardiness, children missing full days of school and being picked up early from classes remain a problem, he said. "No doubt when we get our students in (school) consistently, our kids are going to take off and grow like crazy," May said. In Columbia, which saw no change in its overall scores and little change in other components, Superintendent Graig Bansek said the evaluation within its districts does not stop just because the report card was released. "We want to continue in making the right decisions for our kids," he said. "That's the difference between teaching to the test versus making sure the kids have all the tools necessary to succeed." He recognized there are always places the district can improve, such as its college and career readiness score, which stands at three stars. The rural district added a career counselor this school year, and has started a pre-apprenticeship program to help students find good jobs after high school. He said Columbia Schools, and districts throughout the county look to meet the needs of its students struggling academically, as well as those who accel, and said the state report card misses much of school districts' stories by focusing on the results of a single, two-and-a-half-hour test. "I don't think one test should cloud the hard work these people put in day in and day out — I think that's an important piece … There's some good teachers in this county that work hard." To find your local schools' scores, visit reportcard.education.ohio.gov. Contact Carissa Woytach at (440) 329-7245 or cwoytach@chroniclet.com