School report cards: Clark-Shawnee’s graduation rate increases two years in a row

State school report cards were released this month.

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.

Clark-Shawnee Local School District had better a four-year graduation rate this year at 95.4%, competed to last year’s 94.8% and 94.6% in 2019, according to state report card data.

For performance index, which measures state test performance, Clark-Shawnee scored 56.2%. As far as chronic absenteeism, which is when at least 10% of the year’s instructional time is missing, the district had a rate of 22. These numbers from last year were not available.

When it comes to the prepared for success component, which is how well-prepared students are for future opportunities, Clark-Shawnee scored 41.2%. Last year, the district scored 48.8%.

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.

Superintendent Brian Kuhn said it’s challenging for schools to compare report cards each year because they’ve been impacted by the pandemic.

“Last school year, our district had approximately 20% of our families elect for their children to receive their instruction remotely. The Ohio Department of Education indicated that state testing should be completed with student health and safety as its top priority. As such, virtually all of our families learning remotely elected not to take the in-person state testing,” he said.

Kuhn said a large percent of untested students skewed the report card data and will have a more accurate picture of the district’s academic performance after the school year.

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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