“We’ve been on a positive trajectory for a long time,” said Myrrha Satow, superintendent and founder of Edvantages, the organization behind the prep and fitness chain of schools. “Each year our school has been doing better.”
Edvantages operates 10 such schools in Ohio and four reached the “Excellent” rating this year, according to the unofficial data from the ODE.
The ODE released the data in response to media record requests Aug. 17 but has said that the data is “raw” and is the information sent to its vendors for formatting to be officially released Aug. 24.
In 2009-10, Springfield Prep and Fitness was rated “Continuous Improvement,” the fourth of the six ratings. Satow credits the improvement to hard work from students and staff, extended school days, small class sizes and a back to basics curriculum that includes two hours of reading and 90 minutes of math each day.
“It seems like a lot of the charter schools did better this year than ever before,” she said.
On Monday, the Springfield Preparatory and Fitness website included a statement that it was the “No. 1 performing school in Springfield.” Satow said that was a speculation based on preliminary data for the Springfield City School District but that she had not seen the unreleased data on individual buildings and the statement would be removed from the website. As of early Monday evening, it was still there.
According to the preliminary data, the Springfield district was rated “Effective,” one rating below “Excellent” and had a performance index score of 81.5 compared to Springfield Preparatory and Fitness Academy’s 96.7. However one Springfield building, Snowhill Elementary, outperformed Springfield Preparatory in the performance index score, which is what Satow said the claim was based on and measure performance of students across all grades and subjects through a composite score.
Snowhill Elementary earned an overall rating of “Excellent with Distinction,” the highest possible rating.
Clark County’s other two charter schools, Life Skills of Springfield and Springfield Academy of Excellence, earned “Academic Emergency” and “Academic Watch” ratings respectively.
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