School report card: Southeastern performance index, graduation rate highest in Clark County

State school report cards were released this month, and although districts did not receive a letter grade, Southeastern Local School District scored both the highest performance index and graduation rate in Clark County.

Ohio’s report card system for K-12 schools usually includes letter grades for overall performance, and for a number of individual metrics — academic achievement, year-over-year progress, graduation rate and much more.

Those letter grades were not included in the report card for the COVID-disrupted 2020-21 school year, but some of the raw data was listed including academic, graduation and attendance measures.

Southeastern had the highest four-year graduation rate in the county at 98.2%, compared to last year’s 93.8% and 88.9% in 2019, according to state report card data.

The district also had the highest performance index, also known as the achievement component that measures state test performance, at 69.9%.

As far as chronic absenteeism, which is when at least 10% of the year’s instructional time is missing, Southeastern had a rate of 12.6. These numbers from last year were not available.

Superintendent David Shea said while the district test scores went down, their percentages were still above the state average.

“All in all, with the disrupt to the learning process that we had, I think the scores were good under the circumstances,” he said.

When it comes to the prepared for success component, which is how well-prepared students are for future opportunities, Southeastern scored 40.4%. Last year, the district scored 35%.

Prepared for success data measures college and career readiness through high school students’ ACT/SAT scores, Ohio Honors Diplomas, job industry credentials, College Credit Plus achievement and more.

Shea said he felt the district did well overall for what the circumstances were while being in a pandemic, such as online learning and no testing.

“I was very pleased with the report card. I feel indebted to everyone’s efforts for making this past year the best it could be under the circumstances... The entire community was part of the schools’ success with the report card,” he said. “The year was a lot of unknowns and a lot of change and a lot of trying to figure out how to handle different situations that came up... We were able to limit disruptions and I think that was really reflected in the report card. We did not miss, we were in session every day except for snow days, and we had two days off where staff got their shots.”

Each school and district usually receives an overall A-F grade on the report cards, and more than half of each school’s overall grade depends on how students perform on state tests each spring. The report cards also usually measure student achievement, performance index, year-over-year growth and gap closing.

Last year, schools got the equivalent of an “incomplete” mark and no A-F letter grades because there was much less data than usual. The report cards only contained a handful of normal data points as the spring 2020 state tests in English, math, science and social studies were canceled after mid-March coronavirus-related school closures. The main data categories available last year were graduation rates and high school “prepared for success” measures.

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