News
Athens County Schools Dip In State Report Card Rankings
By: Tom Hodson
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The Ohio Department of Education has released its 2013-14 school report cards and four of the five Athens County Districts scored worse than last year. The only school system doing better is Alexander Local Schools.
The grades evaluate schools across the state in nine identical categories and measure, to tell citizens how each school system is doing during a designated year.
Alexander received five As, two Bs, and 2 Cs. It received no grade below a C.
The declining districts are Athens, Federal Hocking, Nelsonville-York and Trimble. Combined, those four districts had 13 F’s out of a possible 36 categories for a 36.1 percent failing rate.
Those same districts garnered 72.2 percent of their grades (26 of 36) of C or below.
“If you are a parent, the Ohio School Report Card is your best way of knowing how well your child is being served each day. I urge you to pay close attention to what each measure says about your school” says Richard A. Ross, superintendent of public instruction, in his remarks about the report cards.
Athens City Schools received no As and one B. However, it had four Cs, a D, and two Fs. Last year, Athens only had two Cs and three Fs.
One of the Fs for Athens, this year, was in “Gap Closing” which is an indicator of how well students are doing in reading, math and graduation. The report card states “Gap Closing” answers the question : “Is every student succeeding, regardless of income, race, ethnicity or disability.”
Athens also received an F in “Progress” for “Students with Disabilities” in grades 4-8.
Federal Hocking received three Fs in how well students did on state tests, in “Gap Closing,” and in “Overall Progress” in math and reading for grades 4-8. It received two Ds in the “Lowest 20% in Achievement” and in “Students with Disabilities. Federal Hocking had only one F last year.
Nelsonville-York and Trimble Local both received four Fs apiece.
Nelsonville-York had failing grades in “Gap Closing,” “Overall Progress” of grades 4-8, “Progress for Gifted” in grades 4-8 and “Students with Disabilities” in grades 4-8. Nelsonville-York had only two Fs last year.
Trimble Local School had F’s in how well students did on state tests, “Gap Closing,” “Overall Progress” of grades 4-8, and “Progress of the lowest 20% in Achievement.” Trimble had only two Fs last year.
You can examine the complete detailed report cards of all Ohio public schools at http://reportcard.education.ohio.gov/Pages/default.aspx. Archives for past years are available at http://reportcard.education.ohio.gov/Pages/Archives.aspx
WOUB News will have an analysis of the latest report card data next week.