B-C-S still leads as Ottawa County schools show progress with state report cards

PORT CLINTON - While all of the school districts in Ottawa County are showing improvement on their most recent Ohio School Report Cards, Benton-Carroll-Salem is still leading the county overall.

With the grade of a B, Benton-Carroll-Salem Local Schools remains the highest-graded district in Ottawa County in terms of final overall score, according to the scores released Thursday by the Ohio Department of Education.

“I’m very proud for our students, our staff and our community,” said B-C-S Superintendent Guy Parmigian. “It’s really a tribute to all of their hard work, especially amid all of the anxiety and cuts we’ve made over the last year, to continue to hold up their tradition of excellence at B-C-S.”

Port Clinton City Schools, Genoa Area Local Schools, Danbury Local Schools and Put-in-Bay Local Schools each received the overall grade of C for their districts. Woodmore Local School District, which is located across both Ottawa and Sandusky counties, also received a C overall.

“We’ve improved, but we’re certainly not satisfied with where we are, but we continue to show progress,” said Port Clinton City School Superintendent Pat Adkins.

Outside of the overall category, one area where Port Clinton led the county was with the “Progress” component grade, where PC scored an A. B-C-S, Genoa and Danbury each scored a B in the “Progress” category, while Put-in-Bay and Woodmore scored Ds.

“It shows that our students are absolutely making the growth they need,” Adkins said. “But again, we’re not satisfied.”

Across all of the various component scores, Port Clinton City Schools was the only district in Ottawa County to receive an F grade in any category, which they got in “Prepared for Success.”

Adkins said that specific component to these state report cards is a confusing category that they have not gotten much clarity on.

“That’s a confusing one, I think, for all school districts across Ohio,” Adkins said of the “Prepared for Success” component. “A lot of school districts are receiving poor grades in that and we’re really not sure why.”

Parmigian said while he believes that trying to gauge school districts’ ability to prepare students for success is worth being a component of the report cards, the way it is measured now is flawed.

“The state has to change how a school district earns points (for the ‘Prepared for Success’ component),” he said. “Hopefully, they make some changes to that measure to make it more reflective of the good work schools are actually doing.”

Akins said Port Clinton City Schools offers more than 30 hours' worth of college credit courses to students and has students in apprenticeship and internship programs, so they actually feel that component should be an area of strength.

Adkins even noted that State School Superintendent Paolo DeMaria had just last year visited Ottawa County students who were on the job, delving into that preparation for success firsthand.

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Despite the questions with that specific measure, Parmigian said that the recent reports cards reflect the great value the local schools offer to the entire Benton-Carroll-Salem community.  

“This report card goes a long way in showing what a value we actually are,” he said.

jstinchcom@gannett.com

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Twitter: @JonDBN