Lakota Shares Results of 2021-2022 State Report Card

Lakota’s state report card results for the 2021-2022 school year, released by the Ohio Department of Education this month, include the following highlights: 

• A seven point increase in the district’s overall Performance Index, which reflects the academic achievement of all Lakota students.
• All eight elementary schools met the Gifted Performance Index for the first time in district history - a direct result of an ongoing district-wide effort to remodel gifted services.
• Met state standards for early literacy (K-3), including a 99.8% promotion rate for the Third Grade Reading Guarantee.

“We have a lot to be proud of on this year’s report card,” said Lakota’s Executive Director of Curriculum & Instruction Keith Koehne. “We are also still recovering from learning loss related to the pandemic, so there is more work to be done when it comes to achieving academic growth among all students.”

With this goal in mind, last school year Lakota intensified its K-12 Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) efforts, systematizing its approach for using data at all grade levels to progress monitor and target interventions for individual student needs. The expanded MTSS team also had the capacity to review the state report card results over the summer and meet with building principals to plan instruction, intervention and professional development to address gaps. 

“This meant getting a head start on early intervention with students the very first week of school, rather than weeks into the new year after teachers have had an opportunity to gather their own data,” Koehne said.
Personalized learning continues to be the leading inspiration behind every curriculum strategy - so much so that it’s one of the four vision statements making up Lakota’s overall strategic plan.

The recent shift in the approach to gifted services at the elementary level, for example, has made all elementary classroom teachers gifted service providers. This means they are able to serve more students who identify as gifted (327% more last year) by giving them instruction to match their individual learning levels. It also means more students are showing academic growth that's on pace with their individualized learning.

“It’s important to remember that the state report card is just one snapshot in time of our students’ learning and one of many data points we use to build our instruction and meet the personalized academic needs of each student,” Koehne said. “We treat it as one more puzzle piece in the full picture of each student’s individual progress.” 

“Academic achievement is our primary goal, but we also understand that student learning is impacted by many different factors,” said Lakota Superintendent Matthew Miller. “The social, emotional and mental well-being of our students, for example, has no place in the state report card.” 

That is why Lakota issues its annual Quality Profile as a companion piece to the state report card. The 2021-2022 edition of Lakota’s Quality Profile is designed to give parents and community members a wider perspective of the Lakota student experience. Residents will receive a hard copy of the publication by the end of September.