Greenville City Schools' District Report Card

Submitted by Jim Hooper, Director of Curriculum

The Ohio Department of Education released its school district report cards this past week. Ohio issues annual report cards for every public district and school, based on student academic performance and growth as measured by the state tests each spring. The district report card is the way the Department of Education provides families, educators and the community with the information they need to understand how the students in their schools are performing.

This is the first year that the Ohio Department of Education issued an overall grade (A-F) for each school district. This overall grade is based upon 6 different categories – Achievement, Progress, Gap Closing, Graduation Rate, K-3 Literacy, and Prepared for Success.

Greenville City Schools earned an overall grade of a D. Despite much hard work by students and teachers, Greenville City Schools fared much as they have in the recent past, meeting the state standard on only two state assessments – Biology and Civics.

Although Greenville received an overall D for the district grade, the district is seeing improvement in several of the graded categories. The gap closing measure for our subgroups is the district's most improved component. Gap closing is a measure which compares how students in certain subgroups are achieving related to their peers. These subgroups include two areas that we have been focusing on – student with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students. The District improved from 30.8% last year to 69.9% this year.

In Achievement, the district has trended upward over the past three years in all English Language Arts tested areas, grades 3 - 10. We're also pleased to report that 13 students received a perfect score on their math state test this past year.

Greenville Elementary and Middle Schools both met the Gifted Performance Index, meaning that 96% of Gifted students scored Accelerated or Advanced on the state tests.

At Greenville High School, the graduation rate for both 4 and 5 year graduates continues to be over 90% (the state average is 83%), and the number of students who took College Credit Plus courses increased from 79 students (17.9% of students) to 131 students (30% of students).

While the information supplied by the Department of Education is important to make improvements in Greenville City Schools, it is equally important to remember that no single piece of the report card tells the whole story about what positive things are happening in Greenville City Schools. Greenville students have received national recognition for its Career Tech programs; our bands, choirs, and orchestras provide an opportunity for students rarely found in other schools; the high school NJROTC is recognized nationally; and the annual Waves of Pride exhibition highlights the outstanding arts education our students are receiving.

Greenville City Schools is grateful for having a community and parents who value education. Valuing education means making school attendance a priority. Attendance is one of the single most important factors in students being successful. Working together, teachers, administrators and parents can ensure that our children have the best education experience possible.

As a District we continue to make strides in providing a world-class education for our students, we are also deeply committed to ensuring the education of our students is reflective of our local values and traditions; values that have made our community a great place to live and learn. Although we set goals and strive to improve, while celebrating successes, it is important to recognize that what we offer for the success of our students is much more than a test score that is measured and released annually by the Ohio Department of Education.