Boardman scores big

Youngstown was rated in
academic watch for the
second year in a row.

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — Just three of the 45 public school districts in the tri-county area improved their standing on the Ohio Department of Education’s local report card this year.

By contrast, six districts across Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties dropped in the state’s latest academic ratings, released Tuesday.

Every other district retained last year’s designations.

Boardman made the biggest jump, improving from continuous improvement to excellent.

Howland moved up from an effective designation to excellent, and Salem improved from continuous improvement to effective.

There are five possible designations, based on student performance on achievement tests and other factors such as attendance and graduation rate. They are: excellent, effective, continuous improvement, academic watch and academic emergency.

Three area districts rated as excellent last year — Springfield, West Branch and Maplewood — dropped to effective this year.

Warren, in continuous improvement last year, dropped to academic watch while Struthers and Wellsville, both effective last year, dropped one spot to continuous improvement.

Improving performance

Frank Lazzeri, Boardman superintendent, said his district would have made excellent last year but failed to achieve adequate yearly progress with some of its pupil subgroups.

Boardman was able to make AYP this year and returned to the rating of excellent, a mark it held three years ago.

“I have to give our teachers a lot of credit,” Lazzeri said, explaining that they pinpointed areas of academic weakness and concentrated on that, helping pupils improve to the point where AYP could be met.

Across the state, student performance continued to improve, said Susan Tave Zelman, state superintendent of public instruction.

However, the addition of fifth- and eighth-grade science and social studies achievement tests to the list of standards this year hurt a number of districts, she said.

Some schools rated as excellent last year dropped that rating largely as a result of low performances on the new science and social studies tests, she said, adding that it isn’t unusual to see overall scores drop when new tests are introduced.

Dr. Kathryn Hellweg, Warren superintendent, said that was one factor in her district’s move down to academic watch.

Adverse issues

Another adverse issue included the state changing the enrollment cutoff date for pupils eligible to take the tests. That resulted in fewer Warren pupils being tested and counted, she said.

The fact that Warren lost a large number of pupils, including some high achievers, to charter schools and the state’s voucher program last year hurt overall test scores as well, she said.

Youngstown, which had hoped to make continuous improvement this year, remained in academic watch for a second consecutive year.

“We held solid. I’m real thrilled that we didn’t lose,” said Dr. Wendy Webb, superintendent, citing a number of factors facing the district that distracted efforts to boost academic performance.

District downsizing and teacher layoffs as a result of fiscal problems, and pupils and teachers being moved around as a result of an ongoing rebuilding program, hindered the educational process, she said.

There were other issues outside the classroom that were distractions last year, too.

Several students dying of injuries or illness and a student being shot were emotional matters that both pupils and their parents had to deal with, she said.

Right direction

Despite all those things, a lot went right in the district, she said, pointing out that teachers kept teaching despite worries over their jobs.

“It’s certainly not where I wanted us to be, but at least we didn’t go backward,” Webb said.

“We need stability,” she said. “We haven’t had that luxury in Youngstown the last five years.”

She predicted the district will be on its way to a continuous improvement rating with two solid years of stability focusing on education and learning.

No Ohio school districts are in academic emergency for the second consecutive year, but the number rated as excellent dropped from 192 to 139, again largely because of the added fifth- and eighth-grade science and social studies tests, according to the Ohio Department of Education.

The number of schools rated as effective rose from 299 to 347 while the number in continuous improvement remained nearly the same, 113 as compared to 112 last year. Only 11 of the 610 districts are in academic watch, but that’s up from just seven last year.

There are still 182 individual school buildings in Ohio’s public school districts designated as being in academic emergency this year. That’s down from 208 last year.

gwin@vindy.com