Revere earns high marks on state report card

by Laura Bednar

The Revere Local School District received an overall five-star rating on the state report card this year. The Ohio Department of Education switched to a star-based system last year and five stars is defined as “significantly exceeding state standards” and the highest rating possible.

Marcia Roach, curriculum coordinator at Revere Schools, said she attributes the five-star rating to the district ensuring the curriculum challenges students. “We are up on current research on how to intervene with reading to ensure at least one year’s growth [for students],” she added.

The state rates schools in five categories: performance on state tests; student progress; reducing learning gaps for student subgroups; measuring four- and five-year adjusted class graduation rates; and reading improvement and proficiency for students in kindergarten through third grade.

Revere received five stars in each category except progress, which received three stars for “meeting student growth expectations.” Revere Middle School had only two stars for progress, and the other buildings had four- or five-star ratings.

Roach said the district is looking at data to find what is critical for students and how curriculum should evolve next year. The subjects where RMS fell short were math and English language arts.

All Revere schools had five stars in achievement and gap closing, and Revere High School received five stars for its 98.7% weighted graduation rate for four- and five-year students.

Richfield Elementary, serving grades K-2, received one star for early literacy, which means the area “needs significant support to meet state standards in early literacy (K-3).”

Roach said the third-graders at Bath Elementary come into the school from Richfield Elementary proficient at reading, and that calculation is not included in Richfield’s score. Early literacy evaluates students who were off track to see if they improved to “on track” the following year. Roach explained that if 20 students out of 200 were off track and only 10 of the 20 were on track the following year, the result would say only 50% are on track, making the statistic seem larger.

“Some students come in able to do basic reading at the kindergarten level,” she said. “There are a small percentage of students who still have intervention in the third grade.”

Bath Elementary, which serves third- through fifth-graders, received five stars for early literacy. Roach said teachers at Richfield Elementary are in the middle of a three-year commitment to LETRS training, which “teaches the skills needed to master the foundational and fundamentals of reading and writing instruction,” according to lexialearning.com.

Overall, Revere matched its high marks from last year’s report card, earning five stars in every category except progress, which received three stars.

Revere earned a 103.73 on the Ohio Department of Education’s performance index, a numerical value of all tests students take in the spring. In the State of the Schools address, Superintendent Michael Tefs said this score puts Revere in the top 5% of schools in the state. He added that the goal is to reach 105. ∞