Upper Arlington Schools received an overall grade of a B on this year's state report card, with district officials continuing to call it a single data point for measuring teaching and learning successes.

The Ohio Department of Education released its annual state report card Sept. 13, based on data from the 2017-18 school year.

For the first time, the ODE assigned districts an overall letter grade by calculating results in six component areas.

The report card measures students' achievement -- how they do on state tests -- and gap-closing, which measures how well students from different economic backgrounds, races, ethnicities and disabilities performed. It also measures progress, or how much students learned over a given time period.

The Upper Arlington district received B's in each of those three areas.

The district received an A for its graduation rates, and a C for improving kindergarten-through-third-grade reading for students identified as struggling readers who are at risk of staying on track to reach reading proficiency in third grade and beyond.

Upper Arlington Schools also received an A in prepared for success, a component that looks at how well prepared students are for college, technical training or entering the workforce after high school.

Last year, the district received an A in prepared for success, a B in achievement and C's for progress and gap-closing on the state report card. It didn't receive a grade in K-3 literacy because fewer than 5 percent of its kindergartners were considered "off track" on the state's third-grade reading standards.

The district earned a score of 83.6 percent on the performance index, which measures the test results of every student. Last year, the district received an 82.9 percent.

"There are seven levels on the index and districts receive points for every student who takes a test," the report card states. "The higher the achievement level, the more points awarded in the district's index. This rewards schools and districts for improving the performance of all students, regardless of achievement level."

Superintendent Paul Imhoff didn't comment directly on this year's report card grades but said the data are weighed against the district's own "quality profile" developed during the 2014-15 school year to determine how its schools are performing.

"We are extremely proud of the work of our educators and the partnerships they build with students and their families," Imhoff said. "These relationships lead to incredible successes, both in the classroom and in real-world settings that we measure against the very high standards of our community as outlined in our quality profile."

Imhoff has said the quality profile gauges "what matters most" to local educators and the community and is designed to pursue five goals -- performance, personalization, accountability, efficiency and ownership.

Imhoff has said the quality profile goes beyond state assessments designed for external accountability to address needs, talents and abilities of all students.

"The value of the state report card has ebbed and flowed through the years, but we do use it as only one of many data points to consult in our drive to continuously improve and innovate," Imhoff said.

The full ODE state report card can be accessed at education.ohio.gov.

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