School district ranks high according to 2022 state report card

by Melissa Martin

The Brecksville-Broadview Heights School District continues to maintain a commendable rating according to the district’s 2022 Ohio School Report Card released by the Ohio Department of Education Sept. 15 despite changes to the state report card rating system implemented this past school year.

Whereas Ohio school districts and individual schools within those districts did not receive an overall letter grade rating this year as they have in the past, the new report cards measure performance based on five rated components and various report-only data.

“The more we understand the needs of students through the Ohio School Report Card results and other data, the better we can personalize education, focus instruction and tailor enrichment programs to accelerate and enhance learning,” Dr. Stephanie Siddens, interim superintendent of public instruction for the Ohio Department of Education, said regarding this year’s changes. “Ohio’s education community, together with families, is working to improve achievement for students. Our charge is clear, and the work ahead remains more urgent than ever as we continue an emphasis on literacy and mathematics acceleration while providing supports and interventions to help students overcome obstacles to learning.”

For each of the five rated components on the report cards – Achievement, Progress, Gap Closing, Graduation, and Early Literacy – Ohio school districts received ratings ranging from one to five stars in accordance with the new system. The Achievement category measures student performance on state tests; Progress addresses growth students are making based on their past performances; Gap Closing measures the reduction in educational gaps for student subgroups; Graduation measures four- and five-year adjusted cohort graduation rates; and Early Literacy measures reading improvement and proficiency in students in kindergarten through third grade.

Additional components to measure school district progress are expected to be added by the state starting in the 2024-2025 school year.

For the 2021-2022 school year, the district received a five-star rating in four of the five components – Achievement, Progress, Gap Closing and Graduation – and four stars in Early Literacy. A five-star rating means the district significantly exceeds state standards in that category, while a four-star rating means the district exceeds state standards.

“From the outset, we did very, very well,” said David Martin, director of curriculum and instruction for the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Schools. “I’m very pleased with our progress. We still need to improve. We still need to get better. We understand that, but we have to be very proud of where we’re at, where we’re headed and where we’re going.”

Martin pointed to the district’s overall performance index, which has increased from 101 in the 2020-2021 school to 104.7 last school year.

“We are trending in the right direction, but we still want to get better,” he said.

Martin’s comments were echoed by School Board President Mark Dosen who said the school board expresses its gratitude to district administrators and teachers as the report card collectively “reflects what type of educational services [the district] is providing to the community.

“From the top of the house, through the administration, and all the way down the line, we are one organization and I think we can all take pride in the wonderful job the staff has done to achieve these results,” Dosen said. “These types of report cards are not perfect and there are going to be problems in any effort to measure, but they do reflect something we’ve all come to expect – we are a premiere [school] district in Northeast Ohio and in the state and these measures help demonstrate that.”

Additional information regarding the district’s performance, as well as information pertaining to each individual school in the district, can be found on the ODE website at reportcard.education.ohio.gov. ∞