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September 9, 2013
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Oregon district adds more bus stops By Kelly J. Kaczala Press News Editor kkaczala@presspublications.com
Battle on Lake Erie! A large collection of tall, wooden ships gathered to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Lake Erie. Pictured, in a cloud of smoke, the Niagara cuts the British line and opens fire during a battle scene re-enactment near Put-in-Bay. (Photo courtesy of Terry Breymaier)
Oregon Schools
Rivera expects improved report card Oregon City Schools Superintendent Lonny Rivera said he and the school board are planning to thoroughly examine the district’s state report card, which was released last month. “The grades we received, we’re not happy with at all,” said Rivera, who started his new position as superintendent of the district last month. He said he is dissecting the results of the report card, which is a new state evaluation system for school districts this year. Instead of an overall grade for districts, the new system gives grades in nine categories. The report card shows that the district, which has a student enrollment of 3,853, received two B’s, three C’s, a D, and three F’s. “There are no more overall grades. We’re still trying to figure it out. It’s all confusing,” said Rivera. “This is all new information and new data. We were told by the state that the districts should be prepared because there’s probably going to be a dip in what we’re used to seeing as far as scores.” The district received an F in “Gap Closing,” which measures how well all students are doing in reading, math, and graduation. According to the Department of Education,
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Is every student succeeding, regardless of income, race, culture or disability?
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By Kelly J. Kaczala Press News Editor kkaczala@presspublications.com
“It answers the question: Is every student succeeding, regardless of income, race, culture or disability?” The district received two Fs in the “Value Added” category that measures the average progress in math and reading in grades 4-8. Gifted students, which measures the progress for students identified as gifted in reading, math, and/or superior cognitive ability, received a grade of C. Progress for students in the lowest 20 percent of reading and math achievement received a D. Progress for students with disabilities was given an F grade. The district received a C in the four year graduation rate, and a B for five year graduation rate. The district received a B in the Performance Index category, which measures test results of every student, not just those who score proficient or higher. The higher
the achievement level, the more points are awarded in the district’s index. This rewards schools and districts for improving performance. The district received a C for Indicators Met, which measures how many students have passed the state tests at a minimum level, called proficient or higher. Fifth graders did not pass at a minimum level in reading, math and science. “What we’re doing now is we’re going through every part of that whole grade card, examining each piece of it to see exactly what it means. We’re trying to figure out what happened. They changed some of the assessments for our special needs students who take alternate assessments, so we’re trying to see how much of that made a difference,” said Rivera. Low income level “The one thing that is interesting is, the day the state report cards came out, the Ohio School Board Association came out with a report that basically correlated income levels in a school district with how well the school would perform. We looked at all the districts in northwest Ohio. The three lowest performers on the report card indicators happened to have the lowest income levels also. Those are Washington Local, Oregon and Toledo Public Schools
Clay High School students saw several more bus routes this school year. The school board had agreed to add about 17 more stops. “Busing is obviously one of those challenges that over the last several years we’ve had to kind of sift through and figure out the different runs with the elimination of high school busing,” said Hal Gregory, assistant superintendent. “This year, we did add many stops for Clay High School bus students.” The district will evaluate each of the stops for the first month to determine if enough students are using the buses, he added. “If they’re not, then we may reduce a few or change them up,” he said. “The big issue this year is the reconfiguration of the grades five, six, seven and eight, with kids kind of cris-crossing the district to either go to Eisenhower or Fassett schools,” he said. The district is hoping to reduce the one hour riding time for some students. “We certainly want to reduce that as much as we can for individuals. We certainly have been experiencing some of that. One of the biggest things we had to adjust from our original plan was that a lot of fifth graders were going to be asked to walk very early in the morning to the bus stop in the dark. We added in another route to accommodate those fifth graders so we didn’t have those kids walking in the dark. Other than that, we do have a few stops where kids will have to go to one school then transfer buses and go to another school. We’re hoping, fingers crossed, that that will work. We have personnel to evaluate that in the first days. We made the adjustments in busing to make sure we knew exactly what kids get on what bus,” he said. Superintendent Lonny Rivera said after the meeting that the district will continue to make adjustments with bus routes throughout the year. “With the reconfiguration, our buses are traveling in more directions and actually covering a little bit more area. Until
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The promised sidewalks came too late for a disabled man killed on Navarre Avenue... John Szozda See page 10
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