Greenon superintendent: Slip to ‘D’ on state report card is not ‘total picture’

Greenon Local School District received an overall grade of “D,” on their 2018-19 state report card, but district officials say “the total picture of our district is not a single letter grade.”

The district wanted to take time to review the grades — released in September — before commenting on them.

Greenon was the only district in Clark County to receive an overall grade of “D,” making it the second-lowest scoring district in the county behind Springfield City School District, which received an overall grade of “F.”

The overall grade is a drop from the district’s 2017-18 grade, in which the district received an overall grade of, “C.”

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Superintendent Brad Silvus said the district grade slipped simply, “because enough of the areas were not met at the state’s expected level.”

Each school and district received a report card with an A through F grade in mid-September, at which time the district said they could not comment on the overall grade and, “needed more time to review report card data.”

More than half of each school’s overall grade depends on how students perform on state tests each spring. Six factors are nearly evenly weighted — achievement, progress and “gap closing” on state tests, plus graduation rates, improving in K-3 reading and a “prepared for success measure based on high school accomplishments.

Greenon’s grades fell in three out of the six factors from last year to this year’s report card, including progress (from a D to an F), “gap closing” (from a B to a C) and graduation rate (from an A to a B).

Silvus said the grading system tries to give a single grade for “many areas.”

“These areas are calculated very complexly. So much so that it takes a 30-plus page document to explain the areas,” Silvus said. “It is not a valuable way to show what is going on in any school district.”

The report card is not a complete or accurate reflection of what is happening in Greenon, “or any other school,” Silvus said.

“The report card is useful as one of many tools that can provide information to help guide decision-making in our district,” Silvus said. “We value it as data that can help us continue to offer our students a well-rounded education that prepares them for successful futures, just as we value the many other tools we use to measure outcomes.”

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Silvus said while the district can “always learn from data and will continue to work to enhance the education we offer to our students based on a variety of factors,” the district will continue to focus on preparing students for success after school.

“Our focus is on preparing our students not just for success on one day of state tests but for a successful life after they leave Greenon schools,” Silvus said. “We will continue to use the state testing data as a tool to help us achieve that goal, but the definition of student success is much more than one test score.”

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