Ohio is changing how it evaluates and communicates the academic performance of its schools and districts. Schools and districts will no longer receive labels like “Excellent” or “Continuous Improvement.” In its place, they will receive letter grades on several measures in the same way a student receives grades for his or her classes.

The four components that were measured on the 2012-2013 report card are:

1.Achievement:This component measures absolute academic achievement compared to national standards of success.

2.Progress:This component measures the average annual improvement for each student (i.e., whether a student gained more or less a year of knowledge and skills each year).

3.Gap Closing:This component measures how well a school or district is doing in narrowing gaps in reading, math and graduation rate among students according to socioeconomic, racial, ethnic or disability status.

4.Graduation Rate:This component measures the percentage of students who entered the 9th grade and graduated in four and five years.

Maplewood Local Schools was the only district in the tri-county area to receive the letter grade of “A” on the overall scores for the measures listed above. We are very proud of the efforts of both our students and staff!