Local supts. discuss new report cards

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Sometimes educators need to be educated, and that’s the case with the new state report cards released Thursday.

While all three county school superintendents said there were positives and negatives incorporated in their districts’ state report card ratings, they also said more research was needed to ensure that their schools improve their scores.

Van Wert Superintendent Ken Amstutz evinced no surprise at the scores released on Thursday by the Ohio Department of Education.

“There’s not a lot of surprises there,” Amstutz said. “It was pretty similar to what we expected it would be.”

While Van Wert received good marks on the traditional educational areas of the state report card, with three As and two Bs, the district did less well with the “value-added” portion of the rankings – something that also didn’t surprise Amstutz.

“The biggest concern Van Wert City Schools has — and everybody has — is the value-added,” the superintendent said. “We have a lot of ways to go with that.”

Amstutz noted that value-added was an ongoing concern with the former state report card system, and said that district educational teams have been working on that component for some time.

“It’s not an easy piece to get our arms wrapped around, but we’ll get there,” the superintendent said.

Currently, VWCS staff is working on figuring out just what the data released on Thursday actually means for the district.

“It’s all new to us, but we’ll work hard to figure it out,” Amstutz said.

Crestview Superintendent Mike Estes was pleased, overall, with the state report card rankings, although he said there were some value-added components the district needs to work on.

“The fact that we met 23 of 24 indicators and graduation rates were up there and our overall value-added indicates that we’re doing a great job of teaching to those kids in the middle,” Estes said, noting that the district needs to work on increasing Crestview’s value-added scores for gifted students and students with disabilities, as well as those in the lowest 20 percent economically.

The Crestview superintendent said the district’s administrative team met Friday morning to evaluate the new state report card data and to set some priorities for moving forward. Estes said administrators have scheduled three meetings in September to further analyze the data and provide direction to the district’s teachers on how to proceed.

“The bottom line is that we’re going to do what the state wants us to do: look for ways to improve,” Estes added, although he did note that he felt the data released could be confusing for people in general.

“We’re trying to keep a positive mindset here, and look it as, okay, what positive steps can we take now, what ways can we improve that’s going to make it better for our kids,” he said.

Lincolnview Superintendent Jeffrey Snyder was also optimistic about his district’s test scores, although he also noted that the district will have to do further research on the data.

“Overall, as a district, we are in a good starting place from the nine grades that we earned form the 2012-2013 grade card,” Snyder said, adding, “As with each new academic measure enacted by the State of Ohio, we will take this school year to analyze, evaluate, explore, interpret and dissect each of the nine graded scores, and then make the necessary changes to improve.”

Then new Lincolnview superintendent said that, even before the new state report cards came out, district educators have been working proactively to improve district students’ academic growth, implementing a new junior high-high school schedule with more common planning time for teachers, a new grade book program, a new interactive math textbook series and the hiring of a new curriculum specialist through the Western Buckeye Educational Service Center.

Snyder said Lincolnview is also focusing on the future, when the state will add nine more academic indicators to the state report card scoring.

“We also realize that the nine measures this year will increase to grades and reports on 16 measures next year, and, by the year 2016, there will be 18 measures,” he said. “This year we look forward to understanding this new model of student measures and will work very hard to improve in all areas, with a goal of growth in each of the graded areas for next year.”