. The preliminary rating is based on test scores from the 2025-26 school year.](https://i0.wp.com/signalakron.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/overall_APS-report-card.jpg?fit=1200%2C602&ssl=1)
Despite a small reduction in its overall rating, Akron Public Schools continues to meet the state’s education standards, according to preliminary report card data shared with school board members on Tuesday.
Akron Public Schools is projected to receive three stars out of a total of five for its overall report card — down half a star from last year’s report card. The new rating is based on test scores from the 2025-26 school year.
The decrease comes, in part, from a change in how the state calculates early literacy measures. Starting this year, the state only counts students’ test scores or other assessments high enough to advance them to fourth grade under Ohio’s third grade reading guarantee. According to preliminary data, only about 58 percent of the district’s third graders made the cut for promotion to fourth grade based on those scores.
That does not mean only 58 percent of Akron’s third graders moved on to fourth grade. Families are able to move their child to the next grade despite a low test score — something many have done in years prior, and those children were previously counted toward the district’s report card.
The change kept the district’s overall literacy component at a one-star rating, the lowest score available and the same as the year prior.
Scores lower than three stars are considered below state standards.
While early literacy remains a struggle, the district continues to receive high marks from the state in progress — which measures the effort of moving students toward being on-track — and college and career readiness. Both components earned APS four stars, the same as last year’s report card.
“While our students may not be showing the proficiency that we want at this point in time, our four stars in progress is evident that we are taking them where they are and growing them,” Assistant Superintendent Wanda Lash said at the Instructional Policy and Student Achievement Committee meeting.
The district’s preliminary graduation score increased to three stars, while its overall scores in achievement (two stars) and gap closing (three stars) remained unchanged from its last report card.
Full state report card data is expected to be released next week.
Tutoring remains focus to bridge student achievement gap
Early literacy has been an ongoing focus for Akron Public Schools. Like last year’s report card, fewer than half of its third graders rate proficient on the state test, according to data presented Tuesday.
Efforts to boost reading competency through focuses on phonics and other student supports have been in place, but it will take a year or two before those efforts turn into an increased proficiency rate, said Director of School Improvement Keith Liechty-Clifford.
Akron Public Schools, like districts throughout the state, use the Science of Reading and a structured literacy model to teach students how to read. Science of Reading describes the research on how children learn to read and why some struggle. Structured literacy is the practice of that science — it focuses on helping children sound out a word’s syllables, recognizing how it is spelled and connecting that with a meaning.
Students struggling with reading receive tutoring multiple times a week, English Language Arts Supervisor Toan Dang-Nguyen explained. The district also has a partnership with the University of Akron’s Center for Structured Literacy, utilizing college students to provide intensive tutoring.
The organizations recently received a $40,000 grant from the GAR Foundation to support Science of Reading within the district.
Student test scores shift in other subjects
Preliminary four-year trend data showed students’ scores have ebbed and flowed across subjects.
English Language Arts proficiency for third graders was higher for the 2025-26 school year (47 percent) compared to the year prior (45.6 percent), but lower than the 2023-24 scores (48.1 percent).
As students age, their overall proficiency scores dipped. Only 32.6 percent of sixth graders scored proficient for the 2025-26 year’s tests, compared to 55.9 percent of their fifth grade peers.
Only a third of eighth graders and 40.2 percent of high schoolers scored proficient in their state English tests.
Fewer third and fourth graders and high school students scored proficient on state math tests compared to the year prior, and similar drops were seen in fifth, eighth and high school science tests and the two high school social studies exams.
