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Graded: Washington County school districts receive Ohio Report Cards

By Michelle Dillon and Gwen Sour 10 min read

The Washington County Joint Vocational School District received the highest possible score of 5 stars on the recently released Ohio School Report Cards, followed closely by Warren Local and Fort Frye Local Schools with 4 stars each.

Belpre City, Frontier Local and Wolf Creek Local Schools each received 3 stars while Marietta City Schools got 2.5 stars.

Almost 90% of school districts earned an overall rating of 3 stars or higher, according to a Monday media release from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.

The report cards are released to provide families, educators and policymakers with information about district and school performance and to provide transparency about school systems in the hope that it fosters conversations on a local level about improvement and identifies areas that need support, the department website said.

Washington County Joint Vocational School District

The Washington County JVSD, which includes the Washington County Career Center, received an overall rating of 5 stars, which means the district significantly exceeds state standards, a repeat of last year's performance.

The district received 5 stars for three of the four component scores that make up its overall rating, Career and Post-Secondary Readiness, Graduation Rate and Post-Program Outcomes.

It received 4 stars in only one component, Achievement, which measures the skills and knowledge learned in student's career-technical programs based on performance on technical assessments and state tests. A score of four stars means the skills and knowledge that students learned in the career-technical programs offered at the district exceed state standards.

The district's overall passage rate for technical assessments for its students was 87.8%, with 99.7% of students participating in the assessments. This earned the district 4 stars on the technical skill attainment measure in the Achievement component.

The district received 3 stars in the performance index measure included in the Achievement component. This measure is based on students' results on state tests and the achievement level associated with their test result. The higher the achievement level for a student the more points are earned on the performance index measure. The district earned a total of 82.9 points out of a possible 120 or 69.1%.

District Superintendent Tony Huffman said earning a 5-star overall rating for 2023 and 2024 is a great achievement for the district and all the feeder districts in the county who have career technical programs on their campuses.

"There were 2,441 students in Washington County participating in CTE last school year," Huffman said in an emailed statement. "A 5-star report card means our county's youth are receiving a great education in career-technical education."

Belpre City Schools

Belpre City Schools received an overall rating of 3 stars, which means it meets state standards. Ratings of 3 stars in the Achievement and Early Literacy components and 4 stars on the Graduation component contributed to the overall score.

The district received 2 stars for the Progress component, which means there is significant evidence that the district fell short of student growth expectations. This component measures how groups of students made progress as compared to the statewide expectation of growth, which is based on how students in the group performed, on average, compared to other students like them across the state.

There was significant evidence that the district did not meet student growth expectations for math for "all grades," which includes fourth through eighth grades, student growth expectations for high school for algebra and geometry and for all tests for fifth grade and seventh grade. Areas where they significantly exceeded student growth expectations included English language arts for all grades, fourth-grade math and American government for high school.

The district received 2 stars for the fifth overall score component, Gap Closing, which takes into account a variety of areas, including English, math, graduation rate and gifted services.

Requests for comment on Belpre City Schools' Ohio Report Card score were not returned as of press time.

Fort Frye Local Schools

Fort Frye Local School District scored 4 stars, indicating the district as a whole exceeded state standards.

Superintendent Stephanie Starcher said the district was aiming for a higher score but she is ultimately pleased with the performance.

For individual categories, the district earned 5 stars in both Graduation and Gap Closing.

According to information provided by Starcher, Fort Frye was in the top 20 school systems in the region in regard to the career-ready component. Additionally, they pulled their chronic absenteeism down to 13.3% and the district's overall attendance rate up to 94.2%.

Out of other schools in the region, Fort Frye scored the highest in Algebra I, American Government, American History and English II.

"In our high school, in the percent of students proficient and above on all of the tests, we had the highest or tied for the highest in most of them" said Starcher.

Their lowest score was in Progress with 2 stars. In this section there is variance in performance by grade level and subject. For example, fourth grade students exceeded state expectations by a larger magnitude in every subject, while high school students met or exceeded expectations in every subject aside from geometry.

"I dig into areas where we aren't at proficient or above," Starcher said.

Starcher says there are plans to address what the report card scoring means for the district at large and how they can improve on "problem" areas at their next board of education meeting at 5 p.m. on Thursday.

Frontier Local

School District

Frontier Local School District received a 3 out of 5, which indicates the district met state standards.

The district earned 3 stars for Achievement and Graduation and 4 for Early Literacy. The report card states that Frontier managed to get 42.6% of their students who were not on track for the state standard of literacy back on track to meet the state standard.

The district scored 2 stars in the Progress category, falling short of student growth expectations in math for fourth, seventh and eighth grades, English for fourth and seventh grades and state testing for fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth grades. At the high school level, the "district fell short of student growth expectations by a larger magnitude" in geometry.

Requests for comment from Frontier officials had not been returned by deadline Tuesday.

Marietta City Schools

Marietta City Schools received an overall rating of 2.5 stars, which means the district needs support to meet state standards.

The district received a rating of 3 stars in the Gap Closing and Early Literacy components and 2 stars for Achievement. This score measures student achievement on Ohio's state tests and the district received a 69.4% for the performance index score. The district had almost half of its students in some instances with limited proficiency in some subjects based on their scores on the state tests. This includes 48% of fifth-graders having limited proficiency in math, 42.4% of sixth-graders having limited proficiency in math and 53.8% of seventh-graders having limited proficiency in math.

The district received a rating of 2 stars for the Progress component. There was significant evidence that the district fell short of student growth expectations by a larger magnitude for English language arts and science for fourth through eighth grades; English language arts for fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth grades; Math for fifth and eight grades; all tests for fifth, seventh and eighth grades; and English II for high school.

The district received a rating of 2 stars for the Graduation component too. Its four-year graduation rate is 89.7% and its five-year graduation rate is 89.5%. The district's weighted graduation weight - which combines the four- and five- year graduation weights into a single rate and places more weight on the four-year rate - was 89.6%. The state four-year graduation rate is 87.9% and the five-year graduation rate is 89.1%.

The district recently adopted a new curriculum which places value on high expectation and learning standards, Marietta City Schools Communication Coordinator Christan Hudspeth said in an emailed statement. This change has led to improvements in some of the metrics the state looks at for the report card scores, according to a district media release.

"Thanks to the extreme hard work of our staff and our students rising to meet this new challenge, we've seen promising results, especially in the K-2 buildings," he said.

The district has also been partnering with the state support team for its region over the last several years and the team is monitoring the district's practices, according to Hudspeth.

When a new curriculum is adopted there can be an implementation dip, he said.

"Some of the metrics used in the report card lag behind a year ... which means that our results should continue to improve over many areas next year," Hudspeth said. "We were incredibly close to increasing several of these metrics to 3 stars or higher this year, so we feel that the path we are on with our students and educators is the correct one. School improvement is a multi-year process but the results with our new mindset and curriculum are encouraging."

Warren Local

School District

Warren Local School District received a rating of 4 stars and was one of two districts, along with the Joint Vocational district, to receive 3 stars and above for every category on the report card. In Achievement, Progress and Graduation the score was 4 stars, while Gap Closing and Early Literacy earned 3.

"We had some inclination we were going to do as well as we did" said Warren Superintendent Kyle Newton. "Our students and staff are what makes this happen first and foremost ... it's also because we focus on what is important and what we need to focus on to grow."

According to Newton, Warren plans to collaborate with other districts in the region by utilizing a spreadsheet with everyone's data on it to compare scores and share ideas on how to improve the region as a whole. Newton mentioned he collaborates closely with Starcher from Fort Frye to look over the data.

Wolf Creek Local

School District

Wolf Creek Local School District received an overall rating of 3 stars, meeting or exceeding expectations in Achievement, Gap Closing, Graduation and Early Literacy. Graduation's ranking sat at 5 stars, and the school system managed to shrink the gap for those not graduating in their fourth or fifth year of high school down to 1.8%.

Wolf Creek received a 1 out of 5 stars for the Progress category. Report Card data indicated students in grades four through eight "fell short of student growth expectations by a larger magnitude," primarily in math and science testing. However, students in sixth grade "exceeded student growth expectations by a larger magnitude".

At the high school level, students "fell short of student growth expectations by a larger magnitude" in American history, American government and algebra. In English II and geometry, they "exceeded student growth expectations by a larger magnitude".

At the time of the release, no officials were available to comment on Wolf Creek Local School District's report card score.

Overall rating Rating description

5 stars Significantly exceeds state standards

4.5 stars Exceeds state standards

4 stars Exceeds state standards

3.5 stars Meets state standards

3 stars Meets state standards

2.5 stars Needs support to meet state standards

2 stars Needs support to meet state standards

1.5 stars Needs significant support to meet state standards

1 star Needs significant support to meet state standards

Starting at /week.