Hamilton looks to grow state report card rating in key areas

“Yes, we’re happy with where we’re at, but are we content with where we’re at? No,” said Superintendent Michael Holbrook. “We’re always looking to get better and improve.”

While each Ohio school district has its own pathway for success on its way to 5-star ratings, for Hamilton, that path is focusing on the growth of the students. In Holbrook’s six-plus years as superintendent, he said he’s been singularly focused on the Progress component, which looks closely at the students’ growth based on their past performance. And if Progress improves (which is at a 4-star category ranking), so does every other category.

Hamilton’s “number one mission” is to have every district student grow at least one academic grade by the end of the school year, said Holbrook. By doing that, he said, “Everything else will fall into place. You’re going to get increased achievement, you’re going to close gaps in various subgroups, you’re going to see an increased graduation rate if we can get every student to grow a year.”

That push, to be “a district of growth,” started in 2018, and “I think we’ve been extremely successful in that area, and a lot of the byproduct of these scores have been due to that singular focus,” he said.

Before Holbrook joined Hamilton schools in the 2015-2016 academic year, when districts were given letter grades, the district struggled to find its way upward on the state report card. While student growth has been a focus since 2018, it “takes a long time” to take hold and see improvement, Holbrook said.

“I didn’t come in here looking for short fixes, I came in here looking for long-term solution, and I think you’re seeing the metric moving in a positive direction annually, which is telling me many of the things we’ve instituted ... it’s working,” said Holbrook, who has been superintendent since 2019 and will retire at the end of the school year.

Associate Superintendent Andrea Blevins, who will be Hamilton’s next superintendent, said “there’s still room for us to improve our growth” as the district will focus on early literacy and helping the students at Hamilton’s Miami School meet graduation requirements.

Blevins said the district implemented the Science of Reading curriculum a year before Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine made it a state standard. But that is a big focus in the school years to come.

“We’ve got to build that foundation for our youngest learners,” she said. “If your students are leaving third grade competent in reading, that unlocks 90% of the texts they’re going to see in their high school experience.”

Hamilton graduates 97% of its students at the high school, but that average drops to 87.4% when the Miami School graduation four- and five-year rates are calculated in the state report card. But graduation should be more than receiving a diploma, Holbrook said. Officials want to make the graduation requirements fit the kids as opposed to the other way around so they have more opportunities beyond going to college, which isn’t a fit for every student. Students may want to take on a trade, enter the military or go straight into the workforce right out of high school

“We need to make sure kids have multiple opportunities (upon graduation),” said Holbrook. “I don’t want a kid to be turned down for an opportunity because they’re not prepared.”

Holbrook and Blevins feel Hamilton will do well when the Ohio Department of Education eventually adds a sixth component ― College, Career, Workforce and Military Readiness ― when calculating the district scores. This new measure, which is on the report card but not yet scored, will measure how many students are leaving prepared for life after high school.

“It still goes back to the idea that high school is about programming,” Holbrook said. “It’s about opportunity and it’s about growth, and one of the biggest things that we’ve done, and it’s not measured on the state report card, ‘What exposure, what are we giving students to be successful beyond high school?’”

Hamilton does offer trade certifications for its students, but Blevins said the district also does a lot with apprenticeships, “even adjusting our focus with what Hamilton’s trying to do as a town.”

While the goal is to get to the 4-star and 4.5-star scores in the next couple of years, the district will still take it at a manageable growth rate.

“We’re proud of where we are,” Blevins said. “We can show that we’ve made significant improvement in key areas of our focus. We’re going to continue to do that. Growth is our number one focus in this district, but we want to show we are making continual areas of improvement on our report card, just as we did with two of our measures going up.”