Strongsville Superintendent Fights For Assessment Overhaul

STRONGSVILLE, OH — Strongsville Schools Superintendent Cameron Ryba is advocating for reform of the state's school district grading state report card system.

Ohio currently grades both individual schools and school districts using grades from "A" through "F" (similar to an actual report card). Ryba went to Columbus last week to support legislation which would overhaul the current report card system.

House Bill 200, introduced last week, would replace the grades with new performance ratings. The legislation would require the State Board of Education to adopt rules to establish performance criteria for performance ratings and a method to assign them to performance measures. It does away with overall grades of buildings and districts, only rating each component.

"Through this legislation, our report card will evolve to report progress on critical components of student learning, measure key benchmarks of student performance, and communicate it in a way that is meaningful to teachers and understandable to our parents, so that we can continue to drive growth and work together to celebrate the accomplishments and provide meaningful and targeted supports to areas of need," Ryba said in a statement.

House Bill 200 was introduced by state Reps. Don Jones, a Republican from Freeport, and Phil Robinson, a Democrat from Solon. The legislation has 58 cosponsors and is awaiting a committee assignment.

"This legislation helps to create a meaningful future for public education. It provides supportive accountability and encourages a culture within our schools that affords the ability to foster and develop critical thinkers. It gives us the space to foster and develop creative, collaborative, empowered and resilient learners that have the skills and knowledge necessary to not only find success on a standardized test, but to find success in life,” Ryba added.