When Ohio released this year’s school report cards, Western Hills University High School was among the lowest-scoring in Cincinnati Public Schools.
CPS, the largest school district in the Greater Cincinnati region, scored just two stars out of a possible five. Western Hills had an overall score of 2, receiving 1 star for graduation, achievement and gap-closing.
“Needs support to meet state standards,” reads the description for the 2-star rating.
Cincinnati Board of Education President Eve Bolton said that while the numbers look bad, the report card is “a very unfair assessment of where we are in the work that our kids and staff do.”
“The way that the report card is designed and organized, it is designed for highly urban highly diverse, with high poverty schools, to have us fail,” Bolton said.
Bolton said overcrowding in the classroom and better efforts for students for whom English is their second language is a reflection of some of Western Hills’ scores specifically. Jasmine Douglas, a Western Hills mother, said she agrees.