Cuyahoga Falls officials say report-card score understated by data gaps; district highlights steady academic gains and lower absenteeism

Cuyahoga Falls City School District officials told the school board Wednesday that the district—s published state report card undercounts student accomplishment because the district did not receive some external transcripts and that internal reporting gaps triggered a watermark and lower rating.

District leaders said the underlying academic data show steady gains in several areas, a reduction in chronic absenteeism and a higher-than-reported graduation rate once out-of-district transcripts and College Credit Plus records are reconciled.

At the board meeting, Curriculum Coordinator Julie Dudone and Superintendent Dr. Selico walked members through the district—s analysis of the Ohio report card and related measures. Dudone said the public report card is "one indicator of how we perform as a district," and she urged the board and community to consider that the rating reflects both academic measures and whether certain off-site credits were captured in the state—s EMIS reporting.

The district said the published score included a watermark applied because College Credit Plus, military and certain college transcripts were not always returned to the district—s EMIS system. The lack of those records, staff said, reduced the district—s college-and-career readiness component and lowered the composite rating to two stars in the published version. Dudone and data staff said they have altered data-collection procedures, consolidated reporting through the district—s EMIS lead and expect the score to improve when the state—s secure data center reruns the calculations.

Officials gave these specific numbers in the presentation: chronic absenteeism of 24.3%, a decrease of roughly 6 percentage points over two years; EdChoice expansion enrollment of 609 students this year, up from 537 last year; and a cohort graduation rate they reported in district records as 88.9% (four-year) and 94% (five-year) for the most recent cohort once out-of-district completers were tracked.

Board members and staff discussed attendance strategies at length. Rebecca Miller, the district—s social worker, described school-based outreach, home visits and partnership incentives used to improve attendance. Dudone credited a combination of pan-district attendance teams, the stay-in-the-game partnership with the Cleveland Browns (ticket donations), local-business meal vouchers and student recognition programs for the decline in chronic absenteeism.

Administrators described instructional work to improve math and literacy. The district has—and will expand—an algebra support class at the high school, increased targeted professional development for fourth- and fifth-grade teachers, reintroduced Rocket Math (K-8) to build arithmetic fluency, and adopted Zearn for middle grades aligned to the Big Ideas curriculum. On early literacy the district said a later benchmark window and expanded Orton-Gillingham training contributed to a 40% reduction in students identified as on the K-3 "ramp" (a state early-literacy support designation).

Superintendent Selico and curriculum staff emphasized that some report-card subcomponents are binary in the state—s calculation (a district either meets a measure or does not), which can magnify the effect of missing records. They said EMIS processes and School Links integration are now centralized in the district—s data lead to reduce future omissions.

Board members thanked staff for the work and asked for continued monthly updates on graduation cohort tracking, district-EMIS reconciliation and the timeline for the state—s secure data center to reflect corrected records.

Looking ahead, staff said next-year report-card submissions and more complete College Credit Plus feeds should reduce the administrative undercount, but they cautioned that the basic calculation is codified in state reporting rules and will require sustained process changes to avoid similar issues in future cycles.