Brexville‑Broadview Heights leaders praise high achievement, flag ELA progress gaps in latest state report card

Brexville Broadview Heights school officials presented the district's 2024 Ohio report card to the Board of Education on Sept. 17, saying the district continued to score highly overall while identifying gaps in ELA progress and in how the district records postsecondary readiness for graduating students. Dr. David Martin, identified in the meeting as the district's curriculum leader and presenter, told the board the district's performance index was 106.4 for the year and highlighted strong achievement in math and science but weaker progress in ELA for some grades and subgroups.

Why it matters: state report cards are the primary public measure of district achievement and growth; the board and staff said the results show both strengths to sustain and specific areas to target for improvement. Martin said the district's earlier investments in early literacy are paying off but that progress measures—how students grow year to year—require renewed focus in ELA.

Martin framed the results as two related measures. "Achievement is worth 29% and progress is worth 29%" for high schools, he said, and noted that for elementary buildings the weights differ. He pointed to a district growth index of 20.5 and an effect size over 1 in some subjects—"anything over 2 is way beyond this," he said—driven largely by math, science and social studies rather than ELA. Martin also said the district's performance in early literacy earned five stars for the second year in a row.

Board members and administrators described the findings as a mixture of cause for both celebration and work ahead. "We are doing the right work. We just have to remain absolutely laser focused on improving ELA," Martin said. Board member Tish commented that the community could be part of literacy efforts; another board member noted that subgroup growth metrics have long posed interpretation challenges for districts.

Officials flagged two follow‑up priorities. First, targeted instructional work to accelerate ELA outcomes across grades and subgroups, including use of value‑added and grade/subject analyses to give teachers actionable, student‑level data. Martin said the district has sent teachers to TESOL and plans further professional learning in ELA implementation, describing the aim as a "viable and guaranteed ELA curriculum pre‑K–12 that's consistent, coherent, [and] builds knowledge and vocabulary over time." Second, staff said the district believes some shortfalls in the college/career workforce and military readiness component stem from record‑keeping: the district reported 242 of 312 members of the graduating class as postsecondary‑ready, with 70 graduates not captured in the state categories. Martin said this appears to be a student‑tracking and clerical issue in EMIS that the district must reconcile cohort by cohort.

Among other items Martin discussed: high graduation rates that ticked up from the prior year, continuing low chronic absenteeism districtwide (single digits districtwide, with high school down from a prior 17%), and concerns about growth (progress) in specific grades—fifth‑grade science and some elementary math cohorts showed lower-than‑expected growth despite high proficiency rates. "It's because those fifth graders in science were predicted to make more progress than they showed," Martin said, describing how high achievement and lower growth can coexist.

The presentation generated no formal board action; board members asked staff to bring detailed grade‑and‑subject value‑added reports and a plan for the district's next steps on ELA and student tracking. Dr. Martin summarized a set of next steps he called the "Martin 7," emphasizing ELA alignment, continued professional learning, deeper subgroup analysis and collaborative, data‑driven PLC work.

Looking ahead: the board requested follow‑up materials and deeper breakdowns for staff and teachers; no policy change or formal vote was taken at the Sept. 17 meeting on the report card itself.