PARMA, Ohio – For the second year in a row, Parma City Schools received an overall grade of 3.5 stars in the recently released Ohio Department of Education’s school report card.
“Expectations going in were that we would have some slight improvements and that’s exactly what we had,” Parma City Schools Superintendent Charles Smialek said.
“We certainly didn’t revolutionize education and have some jaw-dropping results, but we did continue to have positive momentum.”
Replacing a previous letter-grade system, the Ohio Department of Education’s star-based rating system includes overall ratings with 3 stars meaning a district met state standards.
Serving Parma, Parma Heights and Seven Hills, the district received a 3 stars in achievement, 4 stars in progress, 5 stars in gap closing, 2 stars in graduation and 2 stars in early literacy.
“We’re proud of the progress that we continue to make, especially in performance index,” he said. “Performance index to me has always been the most clear indicator of success.
“It’s really all test scores sort of put in one number, and we continue to improve. We’ve improved actually over 13.8 points since 2020-2021. That’s a really positive upward trend and we’re proud of that.”
Regarding the district’s 2 stars respectively in graduation and in early literacy, the superintendent called the results frustrating despite the fact they’re trending in the right direction.
Regarding the former, the 2023 report card had the Parma City Schools with a four-year graduation rate of 86.3 percent. That increased to 88.4 percent.
“This is a one-year lag category,” he said. “Even though it’s the 2024 report card, it represents the 2023 class. And we know our 2024 class did better still, so we’re optimistic that will come out of the two-star threshold next year.”
As for early literacy, students passing the third-grade English language proficiency test were above 65 percent, which represents a gain compared to the district scoring below 60 percent a couple of years ago.
“That’s a positive trend,” he said.
The superintendent said the most frustrating aspect of the newly released report card is the district was overall .017 percent away from jumping from 3.5 stars to 4 stars.
“Unfortunately, you’re either there or you’re not,” he said. “What it shows is just how little of a margin for error we operate. We’re so close to being a four-star district, which really would be a bragging point.
“Often people look at Parma as our best days are behind us, and we don’t believe that. We believe we have incredible educators, we have amazing opportunities for our students but we also know that getting over that four-star threshold will also help to have some more credibility across our communities as well.”
Read more news from the Parma Sun Post here.
