Lakota Celebrates Key Academic Wins on 4.5-Star State Report Card

For a third consecutive year, Lakota Local Schools earned an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars on the 2025-2026 State Report Card, issued by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. The rating reflects performance that exceeds state standards and is highlighted by record-breaking growth metrics, milestone achievements for gifted education and a full star increase for post-graduation readiness.

“Maintaining a 4.5-star overall rating is strong proof of the consistent focus and tireless effort happening across all 23 of our schools every single day,” said Lakota Superintendent Ashley Whitely. “What excites me most is the underlying success story behind that rating.”

“Our historic growth index score means we are giving students just the right level of challenge in their learning and continuously pushing them to the next level,” Whitely continued. “And our efforts to raise the bar on post-graduate readiness is also very evident. We are celebrating these wins while staying laser-focused on how we can continue the positive momentum for the road ahead.”

Key Highlights & Successes

• Highest-Ever Growth Index: Lakota achieved its highest-ever growth index score for the Progress component – a score that by itself would have been high enough to push Lakota to five stars if the rating wasn’t based on a three-year weighted average. While the report card’s Achievement metric shows where students land, Progress measures how far they traveled from their individual starting points a year earlier. 
  
  “With a concerted effort to push all students to higher levels of learning, this achievement is especially meaningful for Lakota,” said Rebecca Tompkins, Lakota’s executive director of curriculum and instruction. “As we continue to raise expectations and push students to new heights, their starting points each year get higher. And the higher a student starts, the steeper the hill they must climb to demonstrate the ‘above expected’ growth required of this component.”
   
• Gifted Indicator Exceeded for the First Time: For the first time in district history, Lakota exceeded the State’s Gifted Performance Indicator for achievement, an accomplishment that also gave Lakota’s Gap Closing score a significant boost. The indicator specifically evaluates gifted students’ overall achievement performance on state tests, as opposed to the growth indicator that Lakota’s gifted population has consistently earned.
  
  “This milestone recognizes Lakota’s focus on excellence in gifted education, especially since introducing a new model for gifted education five years ago,” said Tompkins, explaining the intentional work to create more “on ramps” for students to access advanced-level coursework earlier. “The upward trend since then reflects the collective commitment of classroom teachers, gifted intervention specialists and administrators to challenging our gifted learners to reach their full potential.”
   
• Full Star Increase in Post-Graduation Readiness: Lakota earned a 3-star rating in College, Career, Workforce, and Military Readiness (CCWMR), up from two stars last year. Through expanded Advanced Placement (AP) and College Credit Plus (CCP) course options, as well as increased access to industry credential opportunities, 70% of last year's graduates completed a qualifying career or college experience (up from 62% the previous year.)
  
  “Our ultimate goal is to prepare every student for their unique path after graduation,” Whitely said. “By continuously building out our portfolio of college and career readiness experiences that qualify for CCWMR credit, we’re also giving our students more options that align with their career interests and future plans.”
  
  Beyond increasing the catalog of advanced, honors, AP and CCP courses by 27% over the last three years, Lakota has also been focused on building out its “Purposeful Pathways.” Although not reflected on the report card in any way, these are structured, career-focused course sequences (like biomedical, engineering, cybersecurity and INCubatorEDU) that hinge on real-world learning experiences and guide students toward a high-demand field. The pathways very closely match the top career interests indicated on recent student surveys, too. 
  
  “Opportunities like this are an example of the important work we do because it’s what is best for our students,” Whitely said, “not because it gives us more credit on the state report card.”

Understanding the Results: Component Breakdown

Ohio measures school district performance across six core areas using a 1- to 5-star rating scale to ultimately award an overall rating. Here is a breakdown of Lakota’s performance on each component and an explanation of how each area is measured:

Achievement: 4 out of 5 Stars (Exceeds state standards)

• How it’s measured: This area looks at all students’ state test scores to see if students are meeting grade-level academic goals for core content areas. It is based on a district’s Performance Index (PI), which is calculated by categorizing students into one of seven weighted categories based on their performance against the goal. Students who do not take a state test, either because they opt out or are absent, score a zero and impact the final score. 
   
• Understanding Lakota’s results: Despite maintaining the same star rating as last year, Lakota actually continued its historical upward trajectory for its PI score, increasing from 96.2 to 97.1. This means more students are achieving at higher levels.

Progress: 4 out of 5 Stars (Exceeds state standards)

• How it’s measured: This area tracks academic growth over the last three years. In other words, rather than measuring where a student lands (Achievement), Progress measures how far a student has traveled from their individual starting point. Specifically, it measures whether students made one year’s worth of learning progress.

• Understanding Lakota’s results: Even though Lakota secured its highest single-year growth index score in history, Lakota maintained 4 stars (only .01 away from earning five stars). This result is due to the fact that the component relies on a three-year weighted average. Either way, this result means that Lakota students overall demonstrated “above expected” growth, in spite of higher starting points and steeper expectations. 

Gap Closing: 5 out of 5 Stars (Significantly exceeds state standards)

• How it’s measured: This component checks if a district is closing learning gaps between different student sub-groups like students with disabilities, gifted learners, English Language Learners and students from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, for example. Both their performance and growth are compared to all students. Beyond test scores, also weighing into the final grade are factors like graduation rates and chronic absenteeism for each sub-group. 

• Understanding Lakota’s results: Lakota maintained a top-tier 5-star rating, improving its total percentage of goals met from 72.9% to 77.1%. This jump is due, in part, to Lakota meeting the Gifted Performance Indicator, but overall, demonstrates that sub-groups continue to meet year-over-year rising benchmarks set by the State. 

Early Literacy: 3 out of 5 stars (Meets state standards) 

• How it’s measured: This measures reading success from kindergarten through third grade. It tracks whether struggling young readers are making progress, how many third graders ultimately meet state reading standards to move on to fourth grade and the overall percentage of K-3 students reading at grade level – with performance in all three areas contributing to the final score. 

• Understanding Lakota’s results: Lakota held steady at 3 stars for this metric and continues to see the benefit of a more challenging literacy screener the district is using to assess early reading skills, as well as a core phonics program. Lakota’s grade band configuration continues to be a challenge for this particular rating since the weighted average of all three metrics cannot be applied at both the K-2 and 3-6 buildings. For Lakota’s elementary schools serving grades 3-6, for example, the score is based solely on how many third graders meet the state reading standards. 

Graduation: 4 out of 5 Stars (Exceeds state standards)

• How it’s measured: This measures the percentage of students who graduate high school within four or five years of starting ninth grade. If a student leaves the district after freshman year and does not enroll in another school, they count against Lakota’s graduation rate for this metric.
   
• Understanding Lakota’s results: Lakota maintained 4 stars, reflecting strong, consistent graduation rates of 99.5% (East/West) and 95% (Central). Because of the penalty imposed by the State for transient students who are not counted by another district, the graduation rates weighing into this metric are different than Lakota’s actual graduation rates (i.e. the percentage of students who stay at Lakota through senior year and graduate on time).

College, Career, Workforce & Military Readiness (CCWMR): 3 out of 5 Stars (Meets state standards)

• How it’s measured: This area is designed to measure the preparedness of a graduating class, based on how many graduates engaged in at least one of the required experiences. This includes earning at least 12 CCP credits, passing three or more AP exams, earning a minimum remediation-free score on the ACT or SAT, enlisting in the military or earning one of six honors diplomas, just to name a few. 

• Understanding Lakota’s results: Increased from 2 to 3 stars, driven by an eight percent jump in graduates finishing a qualifying college or career experience. This rating was bolstered by Lakota’s longstanding commitment to provide more advanced, honors, CCP and AP courses (27% more over the last three years), among other experiences for post-graduate life. 

The Road Ahead

In the coming months, District- and building-based leadership teams will dissect data from the state report card to help inform future decision-making related to instruction, staffing, support services and more. 

“It’s important for us to pause and celebrate the strides we have made as a District, as individual schools, as teaching teams and even in our individual classrooms,” Whitely said. 

“The state report card gives us crucial insights, but real progress comes from how we use that information,” Whitely continued. “This data, combined with what we see in our classrooms every day, acts as our roadmap. It helps us pinpoint where we are succeeding and where we need to adjust our approach so we can continue delivering the high-quality education our students deserve.”

Be on the lookout for Lakota’s annual Quality Profile, the companion piece to the state report card. The printed publication, delivered to every West Chester and Liberty household, dives deeper into the strategies and initiatives behind Lakota’s report card results, plus other aspects of the Lakota experience not reflected in these metrics.

For more information about Ohio's report card system, visit the the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce website.