School Report Cards: Solon Remains Excellent, Earns Fourth Best Score

continues to rank as one of the best school systems in the state.

The school district earned an excellent ranking on its Ohio Report Card for the 2010-11 school year, meeting all 26 performance goals. It's the 12th year in a row Solon has met all the performance measures.

The official report will be released Wednesday morning, but preliminary data shows that Solon Schools received a performance score of 110.7, slightly higher than the district's score last year, when Solon was the top-ranked school district in the state.

"We are gratified to see these excellent results and that once again our students are achieving at the highest levels in the state," said Superintendent Joe Regano.

While the district is again ranked in the upper echelon, Solon did not get the top score in 2010-11. Solon received the fourth-best score.

Solon met its state goal in all 26 categories, which include results in grade- and subject-specific tests in math, reading and science. It also tracks graduation and attendance rates.

The report cards are Ohio's system of rating the effectiveness of the state's more than 600 school districts and 3,600 schools.

Solon did not receive excellent "with distinction" in 2010-11, as it did in the previous school year.

The reason, district officials say, is the "with distinction" tag is added when students essentially exceed their expected progress for two years in a row.

Regano said many of the top school districts like Solon don't get the "with distinction" tag because they are already performing at the highest levels.

"Our students in some areas come close to topping out, so it becomes more difficult to make those large jumps in achievement year after year," Regano said.

School officials say they will analyze the data so it can be used to continue to improve.

"We continue to step up to the challenge and our focus remains on best practices with targeted instruction for every child every day," Regano said.

Stay tuned to Solon Patch for more coverage of this year's report card, including a breakdown of the full report, including the performance of individual schools and much more.