Rachel Wakefield, interim Director of Accountability at the Ohio Department of Education, shows the Marietta Board of Education and staff where to find more information related to the district’s report card score at Thursday’s special session. (Photo by Kristen Hainkel)

Marietta Board of Education listened to a state level official explain their State Report Card scores during a special session Thursday.

Districts are evaluated and given a star rating in five categories: Achievement, Progress, Early Literacy, Gap Closing, and Graduation. A sixth, College, Career, Workforce and Military Readiness will be reported as informational only starting with the 2023 report cards.

Rachel Wakefield, interim Director of Accountability at the Ohio Department of Education, said 2.5 star overall rating wasn’t indicative of all the good work the district was doing.

She also said the grade structuring of the elementary schools presented a challenge when calculating the scores. Only 6%t of Ohio schools have grades kindergarten through second in one school.

Phillips and Washington Elementaries are evaluated under two categories: Gap closing, which includes absences, gifted performance, and English Language proficiency, and Early Literacy.

Early literacy is measured by three components: proficiency in third grade reading, promotion to fourth grade and improving kindergarten to third grade literacy. Wakefield said since Phillips and Washington don’t have third graders, the literacy improvement component determines the school’s star rating in that category.

Wakefield pointed out another aspect that Marietta is going well.

“When I look at Marietta’s data, I can see they are doing things well and reporting the data accurately,” she said.

Wakefield also said the district had a 88% graduation rate in 2022.