Wyoming City Schools keep 5-star state rating; performance index 106.9, growth lags slightly
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Summary
Wyoming City Schools’ district report card released this fall shows an overall five‑star rating driven by a performance index of 106.9 (97.3% of the state max). The district received four stars for student growth, and board members spent the meeting reviewing areas for targeted improvement, including math and science pockets.
Wyoming City Schools received an overall five‑star rating on the Ohio state report card for the 2024–25 cycle, district leaders told the White Rose Board of Education at its September meeting. The district’s performance index was 106.9, which the presenter said equates to 97.3 percent of the state “max score” of 109.8.
School leaders said the five‑star overall rating reflects strong achievement across statewide tests, while growth — a separate component that measures year‑to‑year student progress — earned four stars. District staff explained the growth rating is based on a three‑year compilation in which the most recent year counts for 50 percent of the growth calculation and each of the two prior years counts for 25 percent.
District officials told the board that the performance index compares the district’s results to the average of the top 2 percent of Ohio districts (the “max score”) and that a district above 90 percent of that index receives five stars for achievement. The presenter said the district’s performance index direction has been upward since the COVID‑19 decline in 2019–20 (when the index dropped to 96), reaching 106.9 this year after scores in the low‑ to mid‑100s in intervening years.
Why it matters: the state report card informs curriculum and instruction planning, identifies grades or subject areas needing follow‑up, and contributes to public accountability for district performance.
Board discussion and staff follow‑up Board members pressed staff for detail about how growth and achievement interact. District staff explained a district can show high achievement without high growth (and vice versa), so the district’s priority is to reach both: high absolute performance and consistent year‑to‑year gains. Staff said the district uses MTSS (Multi‑Tiered System of Supports) practices and is increasing the granularity of data delivered to classroom teachers, including longitudinal views of student performance by standards and assessments.
Staff noted one of the district’s aims is to improve the gain index and the effect size used in the growth metric; staff said the gain index for the district was strong (above the threshold used to define a five‑star growth rating) but the effect size this year was “just under” the 0.1 threshold that would have moved the district to five stars for growth.
Specific concerns raised at the meeting included uneven results in science and in particular grade‑by‑grade pockets of mathematics, such as eighth‑grade grade‑level math where students not enrolled in accelerated courses showed less than one year’s expected growth. Board members asked for more detail about students taking above‑grade‑level courses (for example, eighth‑grade students taking high‑school end‑of‑course algebra or geometry tests are counted in high‑school level data rather than the grade‑level math slice).
Next steps and timeline Staff said teachers will receive EBOS (evidence‑based outcomes) data in November tied to state OST results. The district plans to drill into assessment‑level performance and to develop intentional, classroom‑level plans that combine curriculum, instruction and assessment strategies to address pockets of lower growth. Leaders said professional development and targeted follow‑up with primary, middle and high school teams will continue this fall.
Provenance: the district presentation on the Ohio report card began during the superintendent’s report and the subsequent data review; board members’ questions and staff responses about growth, effect size and specific grade‑level concerns occurred during the same agenda item.
