Ohio School Report Cards Highlight Local Districts’ Achievements

The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce released the 2025 Ohio School Report Cards on September 15. Both the Kent City School District and Stow-Munroe Falls City School District received overall positive scores.

According to the Ohio Department of Education, report cards are a way to showcase the achievements of districts and schools. Each district received an overall score on a one-to-five-star scale. Each district in Ohio also received separate scores in six different categories. These categories included achievement, progress, gap closing, graduation, early literacy, and college, career, workforce, and military readiness. 

In Portage County, the Kent City School District exceeded State Standards with its overall score of 4.5 stars.

Kent Assistant Superintendent Justin Gates said he believes that some of the factors that led to their overall score were the district’s outstanding teachers, staff members, hard-working students, the community, and supportive families.

“We are very proud of the collaborative relationship that we have with our teaching staff and that we are collaborative problem solvers together,” said Gates.

Also, in Portage County, the Stow-Munroe Falls City School District received an overall score of four stars.

“Our strong overall rating reflects the dedication and consistency of our teachers, support staff, and administrators. Across the district, we have worked diligently to align our curriculum, assessments, and instructional practices,” said Felisha Gould,   Stow-Munroe Falls City School District Superintendent.

According to Ohio School Report Cards, out of the six different categories, Kent received its highest score of five stars in both the progress and gap closing categories. The progress category measures the growth that students are making based on past performance, and gap closing focuses on measuring the reduction of educational gaps for student groups. 

Gates stated that the high score in progress was driven by flexible grouping and targeting specific needs through interventions, as well as the use of data analysis.

“Our grade levels have made significant growth. I feel like they have done that because they have spent time aligning district curriculum, their assessments, as well as instruction to state standards,” said Gates.

Stow-Munroe Falls City School District received its highest scores, five stars, in graduation rate as well as gap closing.

Regarding graduation rate, Gould said they begin monitoring every student’s progress as soon as they enter the ninth grade by using data dashboards and individual graduation tracking. 

“This allows us to give students regular feedback on where they stand with graduation requirements and college or career readiness goals. Our counselors, teachers, and administrators work closely together to step in early if a student starts to get off track. That proactive, team-based approach has been key to maintaining our 5-star graduation rating,” said Gould.

Regarding gap closing, Gould said they take a close look at subgroup data to make sure that Stow-Munroe Falls’ core instruction is able to meet the needs of all students. 

“Our teachers and administrators collaborate across grade levels to identify what’s working and where we can improve, and we’ve expanded our support systems for English learners and students with disabilities,” said Gould.

However, it wasn’t all good news. The Kent City School District received its lowest score of two stars in early literacy. 

“We’re currently reviewing the nature of our assessments, and I assure you we have all possible supports in place to help students demonstrate growth with our benchmark assessments. We are also working really hard to better understand how we can track and improve our early literacy results,” Gates said. 

Gates added that there are many moving parts that go into the early literacy rating and that they are trying to look into that now in order to ensure

that students are equipped with the early literacy learning that they need.

Stow-Munroe Falls’ lowest scores included three-star ratings in both progress as well as college, career, workforce, and military readiness. Gould said the three-star rating in progress, partly reflects natural stabilization after post-pandemic recovery years.

She said that they are continuing to refine instructional practices, strengthening differentiation, as well as using teacher-based team agendas and coaching cycles to monitor progress. 

“We aim to move from meeting to exceeding state expectations in student growth,” says Gould.

Following the three-star rating in college, career, workforce, and military readiness, Gould said the district recognizes that there is more work ahead when it comes to ensuring that every student is leaving with a clear plan post-graduation.

“Our focus is on strengthening the pathways that lead to enrollment, enlistment, or employment, so every student is truly future-ready when they cross that stage,” Gould said.

Gould said Stow-Munroe Falls City School District is working to improve even more for the next round of report cards.

She said top priorities include increasing growth measures to improve their progress rating, achieving five stars in early literacy, expanding college and career readiness opportunities for all students, and continuing to build systems that support excellence and access, which ensure that every student has a pathway to success after graduation.