Granville leads Licking County schools in state report card ratings, Newark meets standard

The Ohio Department of Education released the 2023 Ohio School Report Cards Sept. 14 with Granville, Johnstown-Monroe, Licking Heights and Southwest Licking schools as some of the top performing Licking County districts.

Last year, the state switched from a letter grade system to a star rating system that included new categories and calculations. Three stars mean the school met statewide standards, four stars are for exceeding standards and five stars mean significantly exceeding state standards.

This latest report card for 2022-23 school year is the first year districts are receiving overall ratings under the new system. Granville Exempted Village Schools was the county's only district to receive a five-star overall rating.

Granville Superintendent Jeff Brown said the rating was in alignment with the district's expectations based on internal data, but that the rating doesn't have much impact on how the district views student performance.

"What we've been prioritizing for the past several years is is something beyond the local report card, which includes our portrait of a graduate competencies, and making sure that we are growing all kids, not only academically but socially and emotionally," he said.

Heath, Johnstown-Monroe, Lakewood, Licking Heights, Northridge, and Southwest Licking schools all earned four-star overall ratings. Licking Valley Local Schools earned a three-and-half-star overall rating. Newark City Schools and North Fork Local Schools were Licking County's only districts to earn three-star overall ratings.

The report cards include six main categories, which are as follows:

• Achievement: Measures 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.

• Early literacy: Measures reading improvement and proficiency for students in kindergarten through third grade.

• Gap closing: Shows how well schools are meeting the performance expectations for students in English language arts, math and graduation. It also measures how schools are doing in supporting English learners to increase language proficiency, reducing chronic absenteeism for all students, and identifying gifted students and providing gifted services.

• Graduation: Looks at the four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate and the five-year adjusted cohort graduation rate.

• Readiness (college, career, workforce, military): Measures how well-prepared Ohio's students are for all future opportunities. This category doesn't have an overall star rating.

In the individual categories, Granville earned five starts in all categories but progress, where it earned four stars. The district received the same marks for the 2021-22 school year.

Brown said it's important the district look at the individual areas to ensure they are meeting students needs, adding that district officials looked at the progress component closely.

"The fact that we're four stars with significant evidence that the district's exceeding student growth expectations when they're already performing at high levels, that's a really good indication of the work that our students and staff are doing," he said.

Newark City Schools earned three-star ratings in achievement, gap closing and early literacy; two-stars for progress; and one star for graduation. The district's ratings were same for the 2021-22 school year, expect for progress, which improved from a one-star rating.

Newark Superintendent David Lewis said the district is making positive strides and saw improvement in 14 different indicators from the previous report card.

"Overall, we're pretty pleased and we know we still have work to do but (there are) a lot of positives," he said.

The district's four-year graduation rate was 81.4%, and Lewis said the district is working to get that number in the 90% range. In an effort to do that, Newark has started a new workforce development program to help high school students determine what motivates them and get them on that path, he said.

Licking Heights Local Schools earned five stars in progress and gap closing, four stars in graduation, three stars in achievement, and two stars in early literacy. The district received all the same marks on last year's report card.

District Superintendent Kevin Miller said he was most proud of the district earning five-star ratings for progress and gap closing. Those marks are hard to earn, especially as the district continuously adds more students, he said.

"It's not so much where your students are achievement wise, you met them where they are, and then you grew them well over what would have been expected during the academic year," he said. "So even though we struggle in a few areas, it shows that our teachers are really, really bringing our students along in leaps and bounds throughout the school year."

The high marks in gap closing show the district is meeting the needs of minority populations, including English language learners, students with disabilities and gifted students, Miller said.

Roughly 20% of Licking Heights's students come from non-English speaking homes, Miller said, adding that 47 different languages are spoken by the district's students.

"The resources that it takes, the time and attention and support, to help bring those kids along is gargantuan for a school district, but it shows that we're doing just that," he said.

The early literacy component is a focus for Licking Heights, Miller said, but the district faces extra challenges as nearly one in every three elementary school students comes from a non-English speaking household. He said district staff members are working hard just to help students become familiar with reading, speaking and writing in English, let alone working toward literacy.

Ohio's third grade reading guarantee requires students must be proficient in English language arts before moving onto fourth grade, but Miller said he points out to state legislators that some of students who don't meet it are bilingual.

"I'm not bilingual. The legislators aren't bilingual. But here's a third grader who's bilingual, and we're saying that student isn't prepared to go to fourth grade? I would argue that because that student is not just juggling the English language, they're juggling their home language and the English language," Miller said. "That's a student that really has capabilities far beyond anything we ever had in third grade. I think we need to acknowledge that and applaud that."

Southwest Licking Local Schools Superintendent Kasey Perkins said she was extremely pleased with the district's overall rating and performance in each of the individual categories, which included four-star ratings in all categories expect for early literacy where it earned a three start rating.

Even though the district is meeting state standards for early literacy, Perkins said she felt the three-star rating wasn't reflective of the work by the district's K-3 teachers and the support staff.

"I am anxious to see how all of the hard work and the trainings everyone has gone through in this district will pay off on next year's report card," she said.

Perkins said even though the 2023-24 school year has already started, district officials and building administrators will dive into the district-wide data and break down the implications for each grade level and subject area.

"It's never too late to have a conversation and discuss making small changes in the way we approach things. Although it's never ideal when the grade card information comes out, it's absolutely not too late to work on things," she said.

mdevito@gannett.com

740-607-2175

Twitter: @MariaDeVito13

This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Granville tops school report card ratings for Licking County districts