Friday, August 12, 2011

*** EXCELLENT WITH DISTINCTION ***


The New Richmond Exempted Village School District learned Friday that it has obtained an Excellent With Distinction rating by the Ohio Department of Education for the 2010-11 school year. It marked the fourth straight year that New Richmond has been rated Excellent.

“We are really proud of our students,” said New Richmond superintendent of schools Adam Bird. “This is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our students, teachers, PTOs and staff of NREVSD.”

According to the superintendent’s report Bird received from the state last month, New Richmond scored higher than the state requirement in all testing areas and higher than our similar districts.

“And we have a district wide performance index of 101, the first time we’ve been over 100,” said Bird.

Superintendent Adam Bird will be hanging an Excellent with Distinction banner on the wall of the Central Office.

All five New Richmond schools – Locust Corner Elementary, Monroe Elementary, New Richmond Elementary, Middle School and High School – exceeded the state requirements in all testing areas to qualify for an Excellent rating. The district was elevated to Excellent with Distinction by its valued-added component of Ohio’s school report-card system measures growth or improvement to determine the "value" gained by a student during a time period.

School and district performance reports are issued annually by the Ohio Department of Education, detailing students’ performance on standardized statewide tests, rates of improvement on those tests, student attendance and graduation rates.

The only state performance measure not met by the district in the preliminary report was Adequate Yearly Progress in the area of special education math.

The minimum requirement by the state is a passing rate of 75 percent in each testing area. New Richmond exceeded 90 percent in six of the 23 testing areas and was over 80 percent in all but one area – 10th grade math (78.6 percent).

“I am very pleased with the efforts of our students and staff,” said Bird.“However, we are concerned with the 5 to 10 percent of our students not passing the state tests and we will be focusing more attention on those students.”

One of the tools New Richmond will be using to achieve Bird's goal is the Pro-Ohio assessment program the district has subscribed to for the upcoming school year.

Pro-Ohio is a benchmark/indicator-driven learning tool designed to help teachers prepare students for success on the OAA/OGT with assessments in math, reading, science and social studies in grades 2 through 10.