District follows local declining test results trends

Much like a vast majority of other schools districts in Lorain County, Amherst Exempted Village Schools saw a drop in test scores regarding the state’s thirdgrade reading guarantee test, which is given in the fall of every school year.

Mike Molnar, assistant superintendent with the district, said during a Jan. 19 Board of Education meeting that this past year’s scores dropped 8 percent, a number that is among the lowest in the county.

For the 2018-19 school year, 99.5 percent of the district’s third-graders passed the test, according to the Ohio Board of Education.

“As you can imagine, everyone in the state expected the percentage to drop,” Molnar said.

These drops were anticipated due to much of the 2019-2020 school year dominated by the novel coronavirus pandemic, leaving districts in the state to learn remotely in the spring, starting in March.

Molnar said a lack of face-to-face instruction in the spring had a large impact on test scores.

“It’s not a top priority here in the district, but it is important,” he said of testing. “We always assess where students are and where we want them to be.”

Molnar said some districts hovered around a range of a 10 to 15 percent drop in scores, with other nearby districts dropping as much as 20 to 22 percent.

The board’s decision to give families the opportunity to come back to oncampus learning allowed students to make up the deficit in in-person learning, he said.

“I think those decisions absolutely reflect that our students are doing very well when you compare to other districts from those tests,” Molnar said.

“It’s not a top priority here in the district, but it is important.”

— Mike Molnar, assistant superintendent with the district