Avon Lake Receives High Passing Rates, Mixed Growth Results on State Report Card

Editor's note: Avon's results and comments from its district superintendent will be posted on Tuesday. 

Avon Lake Superintendent of Schools Bob Scott said he was “very pleased with the our passing rates and the number of students receiving scores that were advanced or accelerated as well as our graduation rates both 4 and 5 year,” but noted “The value added scores are a different story."

Scott was referring to the letter grades received from the revamped Ohio State Report Card which will issue letter grades A through F until 2015 in nine areas, to rate districts.

The district, which has historically and consistently received high ratings from the state, earned four A’s, two B’s, two C’s and one D. The district met all 24 state-set standards and earned a performance index rating of 108.9, the highest in three years.

“We will use this data just like we do every year,” Scott said. “The OAAs and OGTs are only a small slice of what we do as a school district. We will look at the data and make changes to our curriculum accordingly.”

The district’s lone D and two C’s were in the “student value added category” which is a growth measure against the preceding year. The grades have become a sticking point for some districts.

Westlake superintendent Dan Keenan said his district’s three D’s in a district that historically receives top report cards, was frustrating.

Keenan noted that with value-added growth measure, if students are already at a high level of achievement, there's a tighter margin for them to improve.

For instance, he said, 98.1 percent of Westlake middle-schoolers identified as gifted had scores considered accelerated or advanced on state reading tests, yet as a group they got an F from the state in value-added since they tested slightly lower than the previous year.

Scott said he was happy with some results, specifically passing rates.

“We were very pleased with the our passing rates and the number of students receiving scores that were advanced or accelerated as well as our graduation rates both 4 and 5 year (the district received “A’s” in both),” Scott said. 

The value added scores are a different story, the superintendent said.

“We are not happy with a D in the gifted value added area, but we will be cautious about making adjustments based on the OAAs,” he said.

Scott said Avon Lake focuses on getting students ready for whatever lies beyond high school  graduation, whether college, military technical school, a trade or the workforce.

“That picture is bigger than a test taken once a year,” Scott said. “If we see that many students are not doing well on a certain part of a test (an algebra concept), we will make changes to address that issue. If a student, gifted or not, gets 68 out of 70 correct one year and their value added score drops because they only got 66 out of 70 right this year, we may not change anything unless we see a trend. 

“We will not do any adjustment that is detrimental to the student just to get a ‘higher score’ for the school or district.”

The district made changes this summer in assessment procedures that they will complete throughout the year that will help make adjustments to the curriculum more often based on student success. 

“We will also be announcing some meetings later this fall to discuss the current school reform movement and how it affects Avon Lake Schools,” Scott said.

How Avon Lake scored

Standards met: 24 of 24 

Enrollment: 3,545

• Standards met:                   A
• Performance index:          A
• Value added:                        B
• Gifted student value added:     D
• Disabled student value added:  C
• Lower 20% value added:            C
• AMO:        B
• 4-year graduation rate:     A
• 5-year graduation rate:     A

Value added measures whether students in grades 4-8 exceeded, met or learned below what was expected over the year in reading and math.

Annual Measurable Objectives (AMO) replaces the federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) that looked at the performance of multiple racial and disability groups.

The lowest 20 percent examines how much growth the bottom fifth of students have from year to year.