It is an honor to welcome students back on campus for another great school year! My focus for this year is to create a safe and secure learning environment where strong partnerships and respectful relationships abound. Over the summer, we continued to develop and enhance a variety of our already successful district programs, including enhancements to our building infrastructure that will improve already successful collaborative processes. Things like an updated PA system and new radios in all buses and buildings will improve both security and communication. We doubled our capacity of bandwidth to 2GB/second and installed ViewSonic interactive display boards in all classrooms in grades 6-12. We introduced the Science of Reading Curriculum and new math curriculum in elementary. And in athletics, we have added more handicapped and Veteran parking at Tiger Stadium as well as new bleachers at our auxiliary field.
Our students and staff, with the help of our tremendous families, are doing an excellent job academically. The district’s notable achievements include our preschool’s 5 Star Step Up to quality state rating. This is the highest rating a preschool can receive! The Step Up to Quality rating, granted by The Ohio Department of Education, was created to help families identify early learning and development programs that go beyond the minimum standards of PreK licensing. The Ohio Department of Education also rates the performance of Ohio’s School districts annually through the Ohio Report Card system. West Liberty-Salem significantly exceeded standards with an overall district rating of 4.5 stars on the 23-24 Report Card. The district scored very well in all components of the District Overall Report, receiving 4 and 5 stars in every section. West Liberty-Salem ranks 86th out of 608 districts for the highest Performance Index score, showing students are achieving at elevated levels. Our College Credit Plus enrollment rate ranked the district 11th out of the 608 districts whose graduates obtain twelve or more college semester hours before graduation, based on 22-23 data. Overall, we are incredibly happy with how the district continues to help our students meet their full academic potential and prepare for the future.
We look forward to continuing to improve our overall processes to ensure that we are providing the best possible academic experience for our students, nurturing their minds and social-emotional well-being along the way. We will certainly keep our community updated and look forward to another great school year at West Liberty-Salem.