MOUNT VERNON — The stars have been handed out, the scores are in and Knox County’s school districts have another report card to bring home.
Each year the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce releases the Ohio School Report Cards for every public school and district across the state.
These report cards provide schools and districts with transparent data on their performance “to celebrate successes and identify areas for improvement,” according to the Ohio School Report Cards website.
Understanding the scores
Each school is given an overall rating based on how a district scores in six components. Those components are: achievement, progress, gap closing, graduation rate, early literacy and college, career, workforce, and military (CCWM) readiness.
Defining the six components
- Achievement: a measure of how well students performed on state tests.
- Progress: a measure of the growth students are making based on their past performance.
- Gap Closing: a measure of the reduction in educational gaps for student groups.
- Graduation: a measure of the percentage of students that graduate within 4 or 5 years.
- Early Literacy: a measure of reading improvement and proficiency for students in kindergarten through third grade.
- College, Career, Workforce, and Military Readiness: a measure of how prepared Ohio’s students are for future opportunities.
Each component is rated based on a 1-to-5 star score, with 1 being the lowest rating and 5 being the highest rating.
Individual schools within districts are also scored, and those are taken into account when calculating the overall rating.
In Knox County, the five public school districts have seen an overall improvement compared to last year. But how this improvement happened varies drastically between schools.
Here is how Knox County’s five school districts scored during the 2025-26 school year:
Centerburg Local Schools
| Year | Overall Rating | Achievement | Progress | Gap Closing | Graduation Rate | Early Literacy | CCWM Readiness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 3.5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| 2025/26 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
“I’m incredibly proud of all the hard work that our teachers and our students put into this. It’s difficult to maintain scores in a lot of these different scenarios,” Superintendent Ryan Gallwitz said.
Gallwitz said the district puts emphasis on the achievement score because it measurers how students are scoring on tests and their overall academic performance.
“The gap closing piece, we should be doing better. Specifically when you break it down, we haven’t met our goals in gifted for the last three years. We knew this was a problem,” Gallwitz said.
The district has made “wholesale changes” on how it will approach gifted students and professional development. In fact, there are already an increased number of staff members who are working toward this goal, according to Gallwitz.
However, it’s important to note how close the district was to meeting that gap closing and gifted expectation.
“You’ll see they have a goal of 97.5% and we were 97.3% (at the elementrary level),” Gallwitz said. “… There are great things happening in our building and we’re really disappointed when we didn’t get those extra gifted points in there.”
Leadership meetings at the district level have focused on finding ways to intervene with students of all levels, not just those who struggle.
“We can’t just teach to one group, we’ve got to be able to break them up, we’ve got to be able to intervene, we’ve got to be able to push them forwards, and we’re working on that,” Gallwitz said. “That’s something teachers work on all the time, but we’re putting extra emphasis on it this year.”
Centerburg ranked 220 out of 607 school districts across the state.
Danville Local Schools
| Year | Overall Rating | Achievement | Progress | Gap Closing | Graduation Rate | Early Literacy | CCWM Readiness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
| 2025/26 | 4.5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
“There’s no rocket science to this. It’s being intentional and building relationships with the kids and having clear expectations for (both) culture and academic,” Superintendent Jason Snively said.
Chronic absenteeism had a major impact on the overall rating. From the previous year, absenteeism has been reduced by nearly half in the district, from 12.6% in the 2024-25 school year to 6.6% last year.
“That comes back to being intentional … We have our teachers, our principals and our counselors have specific conversations with students and parents, so they understand the value of attendance more than ever,” Snively said.
Danville did see a decrease in the CCWM readiness score. In response, Snively said the district is already looking at what can be done differently.
“We’ve already done some research. I know my high school principal was up late last night: “What do we need to do different here?,” Snively said.
There are 11 different measures that influence the CCWM component, while that does include industry-recognized credentials and career pathways, it also takes into account ACT and SAT scores and honor diplomas — which requires AP and IB classes, something Danville doesn’t have.
“That’s great for students going to college. They need to focus on that. But for many (students), they already have their career path, and it’s probably not 100% necessary for them to put a lot of focus on the ACT,” Snively said.
Instead, the district focuses on what works of it’s students rather than what will make the scores go up.
“We’re going to focus on those things that our students have a desire to do and are more applicable to us,” Snively said.
Danville ranked 157 out of 607 school districts across the state.
East Knox Local Schools
| Year | Overall Rating | Achievement | Progress | Gap Closing | Graduation Rate | Early Literacy | CCWM Readiness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 3.5 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| 2025/26 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 |
“I’m proud of our work of our students and staff. The report card doesn’t tell us everything but it does tell us that our students and staff are working hard and it’s reflected in in the components of this report card,” Superintendent Richard Baird said.
The gap closing increase comes from deliberate work with students and making decisions based on data.
CCWM readiness has been a focus for the East Knox district since the component was introduced into the report cards last year.
“We started a career connections class in 7th and 8th grade … It exposes them to all careers, it exposes them to their own aptitudes, it exposes them to their own interests, and really helps them make choices as they move forward,” Baird said.
Although the graduation rate dropped this year, Baird said that can be changed by the decisions of a couple students.
“We strive for 100%, and then it’s not about whether the students graduate or get the credits, it’s how we help them remove the barriers that are keeping them from that, and I know we work hard at that every day,” Baird said.
East Knox ranked 431 out of 607 school districts across the state.
Fredericktown Local Schools
| Year | Overall Rating | Achievement | Progress | Gap Closing | Graduation Rate | Early Literacy | CCWM Readiness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| 2025/26 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 |
“Overall, we are pleased with our district rating, which reflects the hard work of our students, teachers, and staff,” Superintendent Gary Chapman wrote in an email.
He also said the district is proud of the improvements seen in early literacy and CCWM readiness.
“These results are a reflection of the collective efforts of our teachers and their focus on high-quality instructional practices, career readiness, and dedication to literacy across the district,” Chapman wrote.
On the other side of the coin, Fredericktown Schools saw a one-point decrease in the progress component rating.
“It provides valuable insight into where we can refine our approach. We remain focused on enhancing our instructional interventions, internal systems, and processes to better serve and support all students,” Chapman wrote.
“Each year, the release of the State Report Cards confirms and validates many of the positive strides we are making for our students at Fredericktown,” Chapman wrote.
For Chapman, the report card also highlights challenges and reveals areas that need targeted improvement in the district.
“Moving forward, our work is to continue to provide high-quality instruction and learning experiences that enable our students to exceed expectations across all components of the state report card,” Chapman wrote.
Fredericktown ranked 247 out of 607 school districts across the state.
Mount Vernon City Schools
| Year | Overall Rating | Achievement | Progress | Gap Closing | Graduation Rate | Early Literacy | CCWM Readiness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| 2025/26 | 4.5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
“(The Ohio School Report Cards are) an opportunity to take a look at areas where we feel good about and that we continue to try to work on, but other areas that we need to strengthen. And so we look at it as more of an opportunity,” Superintendent Bill Seder said.
The CCWM readiness rating increase was a result of intentional, focused effort by the Mount Vernon High School administration, Seder said.
“We need to make sure we prepare kids for all different types of careers and opportunities, whether it’s college, whether it’s right to the workforce, whether it’s military,” Seder said.
Gap closing is tricky because there is a constant push and pull to bring up low performing students to meet the middle ground.
“We’re trying to make sure that we’ve got the right interventions in place early enough so that that gap doesn’t start out so wide … we’re trying to meet them where they are and then grow,” Karly Watterson, director of teaching and learning, said.
To maintain the scores, the district needs to do more than just remain strong in the areas it already is well-developed in.
To do that, the district plans to “bolster some support in intervention and gap closing and focusing on our Tier 1 instruction,” Watterson said.
Mount Vernon ranked 186 out of 607 school districts across the state.
