Canal Winchester posts district gains on Ohio report card; early-literacy and subgroup measures flagged

Canal Winchester Local School District officials reviewed the district—s Ohio report card at the Oct. 13 board meeting, reporting overall Performance Index (PI) growth and school-level gains while identifying early-literacy and subgroup outcomes that the district says it will target this year.

Mister Whitlatch, the district—s director of teaching and learning and data assessment, told the board the district—s PI rose from 86.2 to 89.1 and highlighted school-level changes including Winchester High School—s jump to a 4.5 overall rating and the middle school—s rise to four stars. "There's great things happening. We all wanna see our stars be higher," Whitlatch said during the presentation.

The presentation placed early literacy (Ohio—s third-grade reading guarantee) and progress/value-added measures at the center of the district—s improvement work. Whitlatch explained that building-level star ratings can differ from the district—s because the state—s early-literacy outcome tracks grades K—63 and credits accrue at the district level when students change buildings. He said Indian Trail fell to a 2-star early-literacy rating in part because students who were on a reading support plan as kindergarteners were not retained in the building for the full screening window: "At Indian Trail, 61 of our students moved off a ramp in those grade levels. We need 68% to get to a 3 star." (Transcript excerpt.)

Whitlatch described gap-closing and value-add metrics as multi-factor measures that include chronic absenteeism and subgroup performance. He said Indian Trail recorded a 5-star gap-closing rating driven by English-learner outcomes and chronic absenteeism. He also noted that math gains were a district strength last year and that students with disabilities showed measurable but insufficient improvement against the state's rising targets.

Board members asked how cohorts shifted from elementary to middle school affected ratings. Whitlatch said building composition changes (for example, the addition or loss of certain grades at a campus) alter cohorts and can produce sizeable swings in progress and PI. He also said the district is using additional screeners such as AIMSweb alongside MAP to identify K' 3 students who need intervention and to rotate students into supports as needed.

Whitlatch summarized district strategies for maintaining and accelerating gains: aligning curriculum and vocabulary to the Ohio Learning Standards, emphasizing writing across grade levels, continuing teacher collaborative time, and refining interventions based on disaggregated grade- and content-level data. He said the district would continue to examine which grade levels and content areas require targeted supports.

The board did not take formal action on the report card presentation; the review served as an informational briefing and a basis for further monitoring and staff work this school year. Whitlatch and board members said they plan to follow up with building-level teams on reading interventions and to monitor outcomes from the December MAP administration.

Ending

The presentation closed with board questions about how career- and college-readiness metrics will be tracked; Whitlatch said expanding opportunities such as the district—s senior-only teaching pathway and pre-apprenticeship credentials can affect the career-ready measure. Board members asked for continued updates as interventions are refined and new data from winter assessments becomes available.