Thursday, September 19th, 2024
Schools get passing grades
Marion Local scores Ohio's top score
By Abigail Miller
Photo by Bill Thornbro/The Daily Standard
Grand Lake area School ratings.
CELINA- Half of Grand Lake region schools significantly exceed state standards according to the recently released 2024 Ohio School Report Cards.
Using a rating system ranging from one to five stars in half-star increments, Ohio's school report cards are designed to give communities a clear picture of progress of schools in raising achievement and preparing students for the future, according to Ohio Department of Education & Workforce.
The overall rating of a school report card is made up of five components - achievement, progress, gap closing, early literacy and graduation, per ODEW. The College, Career, Workforce and Military Readiness component is report only and does not contribute to the overall rating on the report cards.
Marion Local Schools, Minster Local Schools, New Bremen Local Schools, New Knoxville Local Schools and Fort Recovery Local Schools all achieved a perfect overall rating of 5 stars on the district report cards.
Fort Recovery saw a slight improvement in overall score compared to its 4.5-star rating from 2023. Per their overall scores, these five districts significantly exceed state standards.
Minster maintained a 5-star rating in the achievement, gap closing, graduation and early literacy components and achieved a 4-star rating in the progress component.
"I'm very happy with what our teachers and staff and students have done," said Minster superintendent Josh Meyer. "Certainly our community deserves a large amount of credit because of how they support their kids and how they value education here. When home and school and parents are all pulling in the same direction, these are the results you get."
Meyer said that while the report card is important to the district, it only measures part of its success.
"When you see things like 90% of our students being involved in extracurricular activities in the high school, you see kids going out to band, 120 kids in band that are working real hard and putting on awesome performances, you see kids going to FFA contests and performing well, none of that stuff's measured in the report card," Meyer noted. "We do a lot of things well here that are not measured in the report card and it's super, and we have a lot to be proud of."
Photo by Bill Thornbro/The Daily Standard
The performance index (PI) is the culmination of the test results of every student in the district. Schools receive points toward their PI for every single student that takes a test. The higher the performance level of each student on state states, the more points given to the district's PI. The index score is divided by the maximum possible score. The maximum possible score is determined by the average of the highest 2% performance index scores in the state.
New Bremen also maintained a 5-star rating in the achievement, gap closing, graduation and early literacy components and achieved a 4-star rating in the progress component.
New Bremen superintendent Jason Schrader said the district earned a performance index (PI) score of 108, "which ranks the district in the top 2% of the state."
The PI score measures the test results of every student, not just those who score proficient or higher, per ODEW. Schools and districts receive points on the index for every student who takes a test. The higher the performance level on the state tests, the more points awarded toward the index score.
Schrader applauded the efforts of students, teachers and administrators, including grades K-6 principal Diane Kramer and grades 7-12 principal Marcus Overman.
"We would like to congratulate our students and staff … for their hard work and dedication," Schrader said. "I know Marcus and Diane and the rest of the staff have put in a lot of work in trying to refine our practices down to the individual student and trying to meet their needs. I think that's been paying off."
St. Henry Consolidated Local Schools maintained a 4-star overall rating on its report card from last year, indicating the district exceeds state standards.
"One of our district's major strengths continue to be our achievement and performance index, which was a score of 105.5, ranking us 21st in the entire state of Ohio," said St. Henry superintendent Adam Puthoff said. "This is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our students, staff and community."
Puthoff said that while St. Henry celebrates this rating, the district also recognizes areas where it can continue to improve.
"One key focus for us moving forward is enhancing our progress score," he said. "Since this score is based on a three-year, two-year, and current year average, significant improvements will take time. However, we are committed to this challenge and have already taken meaningful steps."
Celina City Schools improved its overall rating from 3 stars in 2023 to 3.5 stars this year. Parkway Local Schools and St. Marys City Schools both maintained an overall score of 3.5 stars from last year. This means those districts meet state standards.
"I am proud of our teachers (and) support staff for their effort," Celina Superintendent Brooke Gessler said of the slight improvement. "I also want to recognize our students who do their best throughout the school year and especially on the days when they are asked to show what they know on state assessments."
She added that district officials will continue to grow and learn in their craft to be able to meet the needs of all their students.
"In the world of education, continuous improvement is a constant state of mind," she said.
Coldwater Exempted Village Schools maintained its overall 4.5-star rating from last year. This means the district exceeds state standards.
The district also saw its early literacy rating increase from 3 stars to 4 stars, superintendent Doug Mader pointed out at Tuesday's school board meeting.
"So our new curriculum in the elementary is working," he had said. "We're digging into some progress monitoring pieces. That's a hard one because you have cohorts of students and it looks at how did you score this year and did you grow accordingly in that progress. But we're still meeting standards in that area."
In addition to earning top 5-star ratings in all five components of the district's report card, Marion Local earned the highest test scores in the state, with a 111.5 PI score. The maximum district PI score is 109.3.
"(We're) just very, very happy with the results from the state report card," said Marion Local Superintendent Mike Pohlman. "One thing we've been working toward for many years now has been our goal to have the highest ranked performance index score in the state. And this year we were able to accomplish that. So yeah, seeing those results was very, very satisfying to us."
Pohlman added that he not only appreciates his district's success, but the success of all Grand Lake region schools.
"Am I celebrating success of Marion Local? Well, of course. But I am also celebrating the success of Coldwater, St. Henry, Minster, New Bremen, all these area schools," he said. "We work so well together in just helping each other out and collaborating and networking, getting professional development through the Mercer County ESC, and just calling each other on the phone. It's not only an individual community effort, it is northwest Ohio, our region."
- The Daily Standard reporter Erin Gardner contributed to this article.
