For the first time in more than a quarter century of state report cards assessing academic progress in Ohio, Youngstown City School District is meeting state standards overall.
The district received three out of five stars overall on its report card released Tuesday, which the state defines as "meeting state standards."
Youngstown superintendent Jeremy Batchelor said this historic moment should be celebrated. One way the state could do that? By removing the district from its "academic distress" status that has hung over it for more than a decade, Batchelor said.
"The positive things that are happening in the school district now, we just need people to be able to see without having that... that kind of veil that flies over us when people just hear ADC (Academic Distress Commission)," he said. "Now, obviously, it was in place, it was what it was, but it's time for it to be removed."
Youngstown is the only district the state currently designates as under "academic distress." The state reserves this status for school districts that perform poorly on the annual report card assessment — currently defined as a district receiving an overall score of two stars or lower for three years in a row. Youngstown was the first district to receive the designation in 2010.
Batchelor acknowledges the district still has a tough road ahead. Youngstown, like many other urban school districts serving large populations of students from low-income families, still struggles on several key measures on the report card. Those include achievement, which measures student performance on standardized tests, early literacy, which looks at reading improvement and proficiency for students in kindergarten through third grade and a category measuring graduation rates.
But even in those categories, Batchelor said the district is making small but important gains. Youngstown schools' graduation rate for the class of 2025 was 90.7%, for example.
"That's the highest graduation rate we've ever had since they've been measured in Ohio because of the report card," he said.
The gains on Youngstown's report card include an improvement on the relatively new college, career, workforce and military readiness category, rising to four stars from three. Its gap closing score rose from two stars to three. Gap closing measures "how well schools and districts are meeting the performance expectations for students in English language arts, math, and graduation." That score also looks at how districts are reducing chronic absenteeism. Youngstown schools' chronic absenteeism rate is still more than double the state average, however, at 56.7%.
Batchelor said teachers and district leaders are working together to try to create a welcoming, safe environment for students.
"One of my biggest philosophies is that students need to be free to learn, teachers need to free to teach. And so I believe we've created that essentially across our district. And now you see teachers just doing their job, honing their craft, and students locked in and doing their best," he said.
Under state law, districts under academic distress must develop an improvement plan. If a district meets a majority of the academic improvement benchmarks at the end of an evaluation period, it can be released from oversight. East Cleveland City Schools was released from academic distress late last year due to it meeting benchmarks set by the state, while Lorain City School District was released in 2023 by state legislative action.
The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday about Youngstown's new report card rating. In a January 2026 letter to Youngstown schools posted on the ODEW website, director Stephen Dackin wrote that Youngstown had not met a majority of its benchmarks to be released from academic distress.
Under previous Ohio law, districts under academic distress status lost local control. Instead of local school boards, decisions were made by an academic distress commission appointed by the state. That commission also appointed its own CEO for the district. That is no longer the case after state law changed in 2021.
