MOUNT VERNON — The 2023 Statewide Report Card has been issued by the State Department of Education (ODE.)
These report cards evaluate districts and individual schools using standardized test scores, attendance rates and other data from K-12 educational institutions.
Districts and schools receive several scores, including an overall rating, on a one- to five-star scale.
One star means a district needs significant support to meet state standards. Three stars mean a district has met expectations. Five stars mean a district has significantly exceeded expectations
All five Knox County public schools, as well as the career center, have received their respective results.
Below we break down each school district along with comments from their superintendents.
Danville
Overall, Danville Local Schools received a four-star overall rating from the statewide report card.
- Achievement ⅘
- Progress ⅗
- Gap Closing ⅘
- Graduation ⅘
- Early Literacy ⅗
More information, including specific stats for the elementary and high school, can be found here.
Superintendent Jason Snively said the increased scores compared to last year are attributable to the hard work of our staff and students.
“We’ve implemented some new instructional and feedback strategies for students and parents as well as the teachers to determine where a student really is,” Snively said. “Then provided some intervention and additional support for those students.
“So at the end of the day, I think I just attributed it to the positive attitude and the work our staff has put into it.”
Between third and sixth-grade state standardized tests, Danville students exceed the state average for math, science and language arts. Math and reading skills and test results have decreased nationwide.
“We’ve made a commitment to trying to individualize as much instruction as possible,” Snively said. “Especially our kindergarten through second grade, we’ve actually hired an additional staff member for each grade level to reduce class size.”
“It’s (about) lower class sizes and the commitment from the staff to really delve into what the students can and can’t do and the data they’ve collected from doing that.”
The importance of adequate staffing is approximately 82% of the district’s budget, Snively said.
Centerburg
Centerburg Local Schools received a four-star overall rating from the statewide report card.
- Achievement ⅘
- Progress ⅗
- Gap Closing 5/5
- Graduation ⅗
- Early Literacy ⅘
More information, including specific stats for the elementary, middle and high school, can be found here.
The last year and a half, we’ve really doubled down our efforts to address some of the learning loss from the pandemic, Superintendent Ryan Gallwitz said. “It really showed in this year’s results.
“Our math score has improved dramatically, but we still have a ways to go. So I’m super proud of our students and teachers for the work that they’ve done in that area.”
Gallwitz pointed to the third-grade reading proficiency percentage, which was 92.3%.
“We’ve tried to really stay focused on just a couple of areas. We brought in some outside resources to work with our math teachers and some math coaches. We really examined our assessments and if we were assessed at the appropriate level required for the state test.
“That’s a constant process of evaluation and review every year. I think it’s just being focused on just a few items instead of trying to improve everything at once. We were just trying to focus in a couple of areas and it paid off.”
The district gap closing overall was a five stars, but at the high school, it was two stars; elementary, five stars; middle school, four stars.
“Some of the reason we didn’t get some of our gap closing scores had to do with the professional development being available or not being available at the middle school high school,” Gallwitz said. “And that’s already been taken care of this year. They did that the first few weeks of school.
“So those scores will continue to improve. Progress is making a year’s worth of growth, and we still have some work to do there. A lot of that is just being consistent with what you do.”
One of the focuses this year for the school district, Gallwitz said, is increasing student attendance.
Chronic absenteeism is when a student misses 10% of instruction for whatever reason. Either family vacation, illness or unexcused.
Centerburg High School was 31.2% in the 2022-2023 school year.
“We have all hands on deck — studying the problem, trying to determine the root cause of each student’s absence and what they’re doing and trying to intervene much earlier,” Gallwitz said. “I believe if students are at school our teachers can do a wonderful job with them and we just need to make sure they’re here.”
The district’s family liaison spends the majority of his time at the middle school/high school building. They make calls and home visits when kids are absent or miss three, four or five days in a row — he goes and checks on them, Gallwitz said.
“We also do the requirements to the House bill, four 10 requirements for truancy. We send notification letters and build attendance intervention plans and so forth,” he noted.
“A lot of that is all on the school. There’s not a lot of legal action available through juvenile court like there used to be. And it may be a time that’s needed again.”
Chronic absenteeism can be caused by a family dilemma at home, homelessness or illness, for example.
“If we see a student miss school four or five days in a row, and then they don’t normally have that pattern, then all of a sudden they’re gone, we wanna go check on ’em because there could be something going on,” Gallwitz said. “We certainly wanna provide as much assistance as we can and with the resources that we have.
“But overall, I’m excited with our report card results. I spend a lot of my time looking at the achievement area and comparing ourselves to other schools in terms of achievement. We have made significant progress in the last year and a half in improving our scores.”
East Knox
Overall the district received a two point five overall rating.
- Achievement ⅗
- Progress ⅕
- Gap Closing ⅖
- Early Literacy ⅖
- Graduation ⅘
“We certainly are not pleased with our scores,” interim superintendent Jim Peterson said. “We are evaluating all of our teaching techniques and we will improve in the future.”
Peterson said the administrative team will be focused on digging deeper into what the scores mean for the district and in search of ways “to make sure our students are learning and our scores are improving.”
In this leads to retrospectively examining “how do we teach,” Peterson said. “What techniques are we using?”
“We certainly owe it to our community and our students to improve our test scores, which, in essence, we are improving teaching and learning. And that is my goal and it’s going to be everyone’s goal.”
Fredericktown
Overall, the district received a four-star rating from the state-wide report card.
- Achievement ⅘
- Progress ⅗
- Gap Closing 5/5
- Graduation 5/5
- Early Literacy ⅗
More information, including specific stats for the elementary, middle and high school, can be found here.
“The work of our teachers and our staff as well as our students just needs to be commended,” Superintendent Gary Chapman said.
Another area Chapman is proud of is the graduation rate, which is 99%.
Chapman noted the district’s 5/5 score of gap closing, working alongside gifted and special needs students.
“The science of reading now is really forcing our teachers to take a look at the fundamentals of how we teach reading, going back to phonics and phonemic awareness. So, and that’s a positive too.”
Mount Vernon City Schools
Overall, the district received a four-star rating from the state-wide report card.
- Achievement ⅘
- Progress ⅘
- Graduation ⅗
- Early Literacy ⅗
- Gap Closing 5/5
More information, including specific stats for five elementary schools, middle and high school, can be found here.
Superintendent Bill Seder detailed the district’s scores, covering five elementary buildings, the middle and high school.
Dan Emmett Elementary was highlighted for improvements compared to last year. Last year, the school scored a four in achievement, compared to this year’s five stars. The school scored a five on progress and gap closing compared to last year’s three stars.
The district’s performance index has steadily increased year-over-year from 2020 to 2023, with this year’s being 91.2. As growth continues, advanced students follow, Seder said.
“We’re proud of their efforts (teachers, staff and students) and we won’t rest on those efforts,” Seder said. “We still have areas we can improve upon but as you kind of keep climbing, it gets harder to keep climbing.”
Knox County Career Center (Career Technical Planning District)
Overall, Knox County Career Center received a five-star rating from the statewide report card.
- Achievement 4/5
- Graduation Rate 5/5
- Career and Post Secondary Readiness 4/5
- Post-Program Outcomes 5/5
“We are starting to dig into the elements of each component and will continue to look at data to see where we can make improvements,” Superintendent Kathy Greenich said. “Our report card is reflective of any student in our six associate schools who take a career tech course at their local high school plus the students who attend Knox County Career Center High School.
“This makes it a little harder to take apart the data.”
Greenich noted in the Career and Post Secondary Readiness section, staff saw an increase in students earning industry credentials worth 12 points, which is one area our instructors have been working on improving.