JEROMESVILLE — Hillsdale Local Schools received its school report card, which showed high school graduation rates improved, but kindergarten through third grade reading improvement and proficiency declined since the last report card.
The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce released the state’s school report cards Monday, which assess school districts’ achievements from the 2024-25 school year.
All Ashland County schools that received typical report cards achieved overall district scores of four, meaning they exceeded state expectations for performance.
More than 90% of all Ohio districts earned overall ratings of three stars or higher, according to an Ohio Department of Education and Workforce press release.
The 2025 scores include a new rating for the college, career, workforce, and military readiness component, which measures how well the graduating class is prepared to go on to postsecondary education, enter the workforce or join the armed forces, according to the press release.
The other five categories are achievement, progress, gap closing, graduation and early literacy. The achievement, progress and gap closing scores rely on standardized test scores
Hillsdale Local Schools received an overall rating of four out of five stars.
| Hillsdale PK-6 | Hillsdale 7-12 | Overall District | |
| Achievement | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ |
| Progress | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️ |
| Gap closing | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ |
| Early literacy | ⭐️⭐️⭐️ | Not applicable | ⭐️⭐️⭐️ |
| Graduation | Not applicable | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ |
| College, career, workforce and military readiness | Not applicable | ⭐️⭐️ | ⭐️⭐️ |
| Overall score | 4.5 | 4 | 4 |
Hillsdale’s graduation rate increased by one point, but early literacy decreased by one point from the 2023-24 school report card.
“At Hillsdale we’re happy with our four-star rating,” Supt. Catherine Trevathan said, “Our goal is to increase that rating each year.”
Trevathan said the decreased early literacy score could be a result of implementing a new curriculum, the science of reading, last year. She said that curriculum has been fully implemented this year.
She said students and teachers will continue to adapt to the new curriculum, but the process takes time.
Hillsdale has an absenteeism rate of 9% for the 893 enrolled students in the 2024-25 school year, which is lower than the state average of 25.1%.
Overall, chronic absenteeism is declining: 2025 marks the lowest chronic absenteeism rate since before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a press release.