{"id":93025,"date":"2017-09-15T08:19:12","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T13:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=93025"},"modified":"2017-09-16T08:11:08","modified_gmt":"2017-09-16T13:11:08","slug":"overall-county-schools-improve-on-state-report-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2017\/09\/15\/overall-county-schools-improve-on-state-report-card\/","title":{"rendered":"Schools improve on State Report Card"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

All three Van Wert County school districts saw improvements on the 2016-17 State Report Cards released on Thursday — although some improvements were negated by implementation of higher standards this year — and all three also saw areas where improvements can be made.<\/p>\n

\"\"The test measures a school district\u2019s results in six categories: Achievement, which includes a performance index and how many state indicators are met; Gap Closing, how well schools are meeting the performance expectations for their most vulnerable populations of students in English\/language arts, math, and graduation rate; K-3 Literacy, which measures improvements in struggling students\u2019 reading skills; Progress, which measures overall student improvement, as well as improvements in three subcategories — gifted students, students in the lowest 20 percent of a class, and students with disabilities; Graduation Rates; and Prepared for Success, which measures how well students are prepared to move on to college and the workforce after high school graduation.<\/p>\n

The state report card program has frustrated educators the past few years because standards change from year to year, while data from the previous year has come too late to incorporate the changes into the next year\u2019s curriculum.<\/p>\n

Van Wert Interim Superintendent Staci Kaufman said that, for the first time in several years, school districts received testing and other data from last year — although some curriculum tweaks will still have to come during the school year — instead of two-year-old information, as has been the case in the past.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s much more helpful, Kaufmann added, particularly when state standards have change so often, which they have over the past three years.<\/p>\n

Although the Van Wert City School District improved in several achievement areas, higher standards caused the district to regress overall on the Achievement portion of the test. Because proficiency test passage percentages were raised from 75 percent to 80 percent this past school year, Van Wert, which saw some improvements from last year in testing, still received an \u201cF\u201d in indicators met, rather than the \u201cD\u201d it earned last year, while lowering its overall grade to a \u201cD\u201d, rather than a \u201cC\u201d from last year.<\/p>\n

Van Wert also received an \u201cF\u201d in Gap Closing, an area the district has struggled with since letter grades have been given out. The district also earned an \u201cF\u201d in Gap Closing last year.<\/p>\n

The city schools did see a major improvement in its K-3 Literacy ranking, earning an \u201cA\u201d this year after getting an \u201cF\u201d last year. To compare, Crestview, the only other county district to receive a grade in this area (Lincolnview didn\u2019t have enough eligible students), earned a \u201cC\u201d in K-3 Literacy.<\/p>\n

After earning all \u201cF\u201ds in last year\u2019s Progress category, Van Wert earned a \u201cB\u201d this year, as did Crestview and Lincolnview.<\/p>\n

All three schools also earned \u201cA\u201ds in Graduation Rates, while Crestview and Van Wert earned \u201cC\u201ds in the Prepared for Success category and Lincolnview received a \u201cD\u201d.<\/p>\n

Both Lincolnview and Crestview earned \u201cC\u201ds in the Achievement area, while Lincolnview, like Van Wert, received an \u201cF\u201d in the Gap Closing category. Crestview earned a \u201cC\u201d in Gap Closing.<\/p>\n

Kaufman said the creation of data teams at Van Wert to study report cards results has helped the district improve in several areas, especially the K-3 Literacy category. She also noted that, in the short time she has been at Van Wert, she has been very impressed by the district\u2019s educational initiatives.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the interim superintendent said district educators would continue improvement efforts after this year\u2019s results.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m confident the Van Wert City Schools staff is prepared to study our report card results and move the district forward,\u201d Kaufman added. \u201cWe are going to look at where we can improve, and I know that it\u2019s in the best interest of the district to try to continually increase progress for all students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lincolnview Superintendent Jeff Snyder was more positive this year about the district\u2019s results than he was last year, largely because of lateness of last year\u2019s State Report Card release.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, we were very satisfied in a number of areas with our results on the 2017 State of Ohio Report Card; however, in some areas we were not,\u201d he said. \u201cWe did take into consideration that the state passage rates on all of our state achievement tests increased to a much higher mark.\u201d<\/p>\n

Snyder said he was proud of the Lincolnview faculty and staff and their commitment to district students, and said educators will continue to work to improve test scores.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are always up to the task to get batter, and we have been (focusing), and will continue to focus on providing quality and highly effective instruction in our classrooms,\u201d he added. \u201cWe have also focused on the need to enhance, enrich, and empower our students in areas that the report card does not reflect, or even evaluate, such as school pride, a community-centered focus, serving and leading, and a career connection of employability and college readiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crestview Superintendent Mike Estes said he was \u201ccautiously optimistic that we\u2019re headed in the right direction, having moved up, especially in the indicators, by 10 percentage points. I think that\u2019s a good place for us to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going forward, all three county school districts would love to see the \u201cmoving target\u201d of state proficiency standards, as quantified in the State Report Card, stop moving. Area educators have said in the past that having a stable State Report Card program would make school districts\u2019 task of meeting state proficiency standards much easier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor All three Van Wert County school districts saw improvements on the 2016-17 State Report Cards released on Thursday — although some improvements were negated by implementation of higher standards this year — and all three also saw areas where improvements can be made. The test measures a school district\u2019s results in six […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 14:13:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}