LEWIS CENTER, Ohio — The Olentangy Local School District received a 5 on the state report card, the highest score a school could receive.
The district has over 23,000 students and is the fourth-largest district in the state.
Olentangy Chief Academic Officer Dr. Michelle Blackley said the high score on the state report card is due to the district living out its mission.
“Our very purposeful focus is that we are one Olentangy, with one mission. That mission is to facilitate maximum learning for every student. That mission threads through the whole organization and guides the work of everyone,” said Blackley.
Blackley said she is most proud of how the district has been able to close the gap, specifically how sub-groups of students score versus traditional students. One of those sub-groups is race.
“It is clear we are providing an equitable learning experience for all of our sub-group students,” said Blackley.
Blackley said another key in the high score is the teachers in the district. They are constantly looking for ways to improve.
“Those teachers work very hard to look at data and identify areas of strength and collaborate with each other across curriculum and grade levels,” she said.
Although the district received the highest score, Blackley said there is still room for improvement.
“Our students are achieving very high. Our students are growing but they appear to have not grown as much magnitude as last year,” said Blackley.
Finding ways to improve the district is what she said they do so well, always assessing the potential need for additional resources or intervention. But the state report card isn’t the only data the district looks at to improve.
“We offer a very robust educational experience for students, so we are continually looking at other data and not just the state report card to identify areas and strategies that we want to replicate, and areas we need to improve,” said Blackley.