All Strongsville Schools 'Excellent' Except 2 -- And They're Better

All of Strongsville's schools earned an "Excellent" rating on state report cards except two: Drake and Surrarrer elementaries, which ranked "Excellent with Distinction."

For the first time ever, the district as a whole also was rated "Excellent with Distinction" -- the highest possible rank.

To achieve the "with Distinction" rating, schools must be rated "Above" in the Value Added category, which means students met more than the standard one year of progress during the school year. 

School and district report cards are usually released at the beginning of the school year, but that timeline has been pushed back while the state auditor investigates whether some districts manipulated attendance data. Some preliminary data—without the ratings—was released in late September. The final results and the PDFs of the report cards won’t be published until the state auditor’s investigation is done, according to the Ohio Department of Education’s website. 

Strongsville schools met all 26 of the report card indicators — measures like how many students scored proficient on a certain state test or attendance rate — and have a preliminary performance index of 104.5 out of 120. The performance index measures how well students performed on state tests overall.

Districtwide, Strongsville schools' attendance rate was 95.9 percent.

While the attendance rate and performance index had not been previously released, the school board got a look at the results in September.