Maumee City Schools Receives Four Stars On State Report Card

BY KRISTI FISH | MIRROR REPORTER — The Ohio School Report Cards were released by the Ohio Department of Education last week, and Maumee City Schools received an overall rating of four out of five stars.

Previously, districts received letter grades before the switch was made to star rankings last year.

“The purpose of the state report card is to have a common measure across the state for all public schools and districts. This allows the state to track overall results across the state for their planning purposes,” explained Maumee City Schools Superintendent Steve Lee.

Five components – Achievement, Progress, Gap Closing, Graduation and Early Literacy – are used to determine the overall rating.

The Achievement component, which measures performance, represents how well students performed on state tests last year and whether they met the thresholds established by the state.

The performance index uses the state test results of students in third through 12th grade from the 2022-23 school year to determine the score out of a possible 108.8. Maumee City Schools received a score of 89.98 which resulted in four stars for the Achievement component.

In the Progress component, which uses previous data to compare academic performance to expected growth, the district earned three stars.

“We view any rating where the district did not earn 5 stars, as an opportunity for improvement,” Lee said. “Our rating in Progress is defined by the state as evidence that we met student growth expectations. While it is important to know that we are meeting this expectation, we will always strive to exceed expectations.”

Lee said the district will continue to look at the data to determine how the schools can improve upon those results and implement changes in the classroom.

The district also earned three stars in Early Literacy, which uses data from kindergarten through third grade students to measure reading improvement and proficiency. Last year, the district earned two stars in Early Literacy.

In order to improve that result and help young students with their reading skills, the district has implemented several practices, explained Michelle Shafer, the director of teaching and learning.

“Our elementary teachers have spent the last two years engaged in intensive professional development around Early Literacy best practices and instructional methods,” Shafer said. “Additionally, we have a new phonics program that we started last year. Finally, we have skilled reading specialists and interventionists who use high-quality resources when they work with our students who need extra reading support.”

The district received five stars in two components on the state report: Gap Closing and Graduation.

Gap Closing determines how well students meet the performance expectations in English language arts, math and graduation along with how the schools are doing in supporting English learners to increase their proficiency, reduce chronic absenteeism for all students and identify gifted students in order to provide gifted services.

The district had a four-year graduation rate of 95.9 percent, which earned them five stars.

One component, College, Career, Workforce and Military Readiness, does not count toward the overall rating for the district, but instead provides information on how well prepared the students are for future opportunities.

ACT and SAT participation, honors diplomas, pre-apprenticeship completion, dual enrollment credit, advanced placement participation and exam scores and more are used to measure students’ post-graduation readiness.

The district earned a score of 52.8 percent, based on 104 students demonstrating post-secondary readiness divided by 197 students.

“The long-term goal of the school district is to prepare students for their future beyond graduation,” said assistant director of teaching and learning Racheal Salazar. “This component of the report card allows us to examine the various avenues that our students are utilizing to prepare for their next steps beyond Maumee High School. The graduation seals and pathways offered by the state allow students to demonstrate their readiness for these steps in a variety of ways.”

The schools will use the data to see which pathways are being used by students and how to better support and meet those needs in the future, Salazar added.

“The state report card is one of many data points we use to measure the impact of our educational programming. As a district, we believe strongly in using data to drive our decision making, and as always, we will take this information into consideration when making future decisions in our continuous improvement efforts,” Lee said.

The report cards for Maumee, including the individual schools, and all other Ohio public schools are available at reportcard.education.ohio.gov.