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State releases report cards

LISBON — The grading system may have changed, but the Columbiana school district still ranked first among local districts on the latest state report cards, although this time it was joined by Crestview, United Local and West Branch.

All four districts received Bs for overall performance under the new report card system, which is the first time the Ohio Department of Education issued an overall grade for districts and assigned grades of A to F to the various performance components. Those components still exist, such as performance index, indicators met and gap closing, but this time they are also assigned an easy-to-understand letter grade.

Receiving an overall grade of C for the 2017-18 school year were Beaver Local, East Liverpool, East Palestine, Lisbon, Salem and Southern Local. Leetonia and Wellsville received Ds, and the Buckeye Online School for Success in East Liverpool had the only F grade.

About 40 percent of the 611 school districts in Ohio received an A or B overall grade, while less than 10 percent got an F.

The overall grade is based on how districts fared in six components — achievement, progress, gap closing, K-3 reading skill improvement, graduation rate, and preparedness for success upon graduation.

Performance index is generally considered the best measure of how a district performed academically. It is based on how students perform overall on state exams. Columbiana ranked first among local districts, with a PI score of 86.5 percent. The following is how the other local districts fared in the PI category:

–Crestview, 80.1 percent

–West Branch, 77.7 percent

–United Local, 76.7 percent

–Beaver Local, 76,1 percent

–Lisbon, 76.1 percent

–East Palestine, 73 percent

–Salem, 72.9 percent

–Wellsville, 68 percent

–Leetonia, 67.8 percent

–Southern Local, 66.6 percent

–East Liverpool, 59 percent

–BOSS, 55.2 percent

Indicators met is the second-most important component when of evaluating academic performance, which is based on the percentage of students who pass the state exams. It also takes into account chronic absenteeism for the first time.

Columbiana again ranked first in this category after having met 20 of the 24 indicators. The following is how the other districts fared in the indicators-met category:

–Crestview, 14 of 24.

–West Branch, 11 of 24

–Beaver Local, 10 of 24

–United Local, 10 of 24

–Lisbon, 7 of 24

–Salem, 5 of 24

–East Palestine, 4 of 24

–Wellsville, 4 of 24

–Leetonia, 3 of 24

–Southern Local, 3 of 24

–BOSS, 3 of 23

–East Liverpool, 1 of 24

Another key academic category is the K-3 literacy component, which measures the improvement among students in those grades who are having difficulty becoming proficient at reading. School districts are measured by the percentage of students starting the year needing reading intervention who are on track to achieve proficiency by the end of the year.

The following is a list of how successful districts were in getting at-risk students on track to achieve reading proficiency:

–Beaver Local: 29.8 percent based on 94 students needing intervention.

–Columbiana: 61.5 percent based on 13 students needing intervention.

–Crestview: 58.1 percent based on 93 students needing intervention.

–East Liverpool: 20.6 percent based on 223 students needing intervention.

–East Palestine: 68.6 percent based on 51 students needing intervention.

–Leetonia: 19.2 percent based on 78 students needing intervention.

–Lisbon: 47.2 percent based on 53 students needing intervention.

–Salem: 34.3 percent based on 172 students needing intervention.

–Southern Local: 30.2 percent based on 63 students needing intervention.

–United Local: 35.7 percent based on 42 students needing intervention.

–Wellsville: 36.4 percent based on 66 students needing intervention.

–West Branch: 55.2 percent based on 87 students needing intervention.

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