Although the Ohio Department of Education released its annual school report cards on Thursday, parents, school district employees and students won’t see any letter grades of performance listed for a second year.
Legislation passed earlier this year by the Ohio legislature prevented the listing of overall letter grades for districts and buildings. However, the report cards do provide information on graduation rates and other metrics – enough to make some assessments of progress.
The data for area school districts and individual schools show improvement from 2020, which saw a severe decline because of the pandemic and fewer tests being given.
“And while the available data from this year’s report card (are) not sufficient to tell the whole story, (they do) reveal the unfortunate reality that pandemic-related disruptions had the biggest impact on the state’s most vulnerable students,” Laura Kohler, president of the state Board of Education, and Paolo DeMaria, superintendent of Public Instruction, said in the user’s guide to the report cards.
The Mount Vernon City School District offered hybrid instruction from Aug. 1 to Nov. 30, 2020, and switched to in-person instruction last December. Hardware devices for schoolwork were provided to 99.9% of the district’s students. Significant evidence of progress in English language arts (ELA) by students in grades 4, 5, 6, 8 and high school was shown. But seventh grade ELA and math test scores showed significant evidence of less progress than expected.
The district scored 81.1 out of a possible 120 points in the performance index. That was 9.1 points higher than in the previous school year, though as expected still below 2019 by 10 points.
Mount Vernon High's four-year graduation rate by the summer of 2020 was more than 5% higher than the state average. Mount Vernon's graduation rate was 92.6%, which also was 1.4% higher than similar districts. The five-year graduation rate of 91.5% was 3.2% higher than the state average, though it was slightly behind similar districts' graduation rate of 93.7%.
Columbia Elementary School’s performance index was higher than the district average, earning 87.6 points. Fifth-grade students made less progress than expected in ELA but made more progress in math. Pleasant Street Elementary students made comparable progress in ELA. For fifth-grade math, their progress was similar to statewide expectations.
Test scores showed Dan Emmett, East, Twin Oak and Wiggin Street elementary schools’ fourth-grade students made better progress than expected. They kept at it in fifth grade, with evidence also of more progress in math. East Elementary scored the highest on the performance index, earning 101.4 points.
At Mount Vernon Middle School, sixth- and eighth-grade ELA students made more progress, along with eighth-grade science, math and algebra students. But they made less progress in sixth- and seventh-grade math and seventh-grade ELA. The school’s performance index was below the district average at 79.6.
Mount Vernon High’s overall performance index was 71.6. Students in English II and geometry made more progress than was expected, but in algebra they made less progress.
