School report cards: Southeastern scores highest on achievement

Southeastern Local Schools received the highest rating in achievement on the state-release report cards.

Ohio K-12 schools did not receive an overall grade for 2021-22, but they did receive ratings on individual components of the report card. The Ohio legislature also changed the previous system of A-F grades to a 1-5 stars system.

Schools were still evaluated on how well their students did on state tests, reading proficiency in kindergarten through third grade, graduation rates, how students are progressing year over year, how well schools are able to close gaps between student subgroups, and how ready a student is to enter the workforce, college or the military after graduation. The new equation puts increased weight on year-over-year progress and gap closing.

On the new 1-5 star system, Southeastern had the highest star rating in achievement with a 4. The district also had a 5-star rating for gap closing, a 4 in graduation rate and a 3 in progress and early literacy.

Superintendent David Shea said the district scored “very well” on the report card.

“Students, parents and staff should be commended for their efforts during an academically challenging year,” Shea said. “Teachers did a tremendous job in helping students overcome learning loss from the previous year. While we scored well within the county, Southeastern is also looking to improve in all grade card areas for the coming school year.”

The district had a performance index, which measures state test performance, of 80.7%, which is an increase from last year’s 69.9%. As far as gap closing, the district had a rate of 62.1%.

According to ODE data, of Ohio’s 607 graded school districts, 581 saw their Performance Index rise in 2021-22, and only 26 saw a decline. That’s because scores dropped in 2020-21 due largely to COVID disruptions, then they bounced back some in 21-22.

When it comes to graduation rate, Southeastern had an overall rate of 95.1%. The four-year rate decreased this year at 93.2% compared to last year’s 98.2%.

Last year, school report cards did not include letter grades for all individual metrics and only listed some of the raw data including academic, graduation and attendance measures.

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