Results from the state’s achievement tests were released Monday, and while many of the schools throughout the county fared well, a few did not.

School districts in Amherst, Avon Lake and Avon consistently ranked among the highest in student scores for grades three through eight.

Avon Lake Superintendent Bob Scott said the district worked hard to prepare students, no matter what their level of learning was.

“If a kid is doing well, we say, ‘What can we do to make them better right now?’ ” he said. “If there are kids struggling, then we try to bring them up as quickly as possible. I’m proud of our kids and teachers. I feel like we make standardized testing a part of what we do every day.”

The state’s achievement tests measure students on what they know and are able to do in various subjects within their respective grade levels. They were taken in May.

Lorain and Elyria school districts —the two largest within the county —consistently ranked on the low end of scores and also had some of the largest percentages in “below basic” performance levels — two notches under the proficient level.

Mark Sutter, director of academic services for Elyria Schools, said the district has a more diverse student base than other local districts and faces more challenges getting students up to the state’s expectations.

“Not all of our students enter kindergarten with all of the skills that perhaps some of the students in affluent districts do,” he said. “We often find that we have some catching up to do.”

Sutter said the district will restructure its academic services department to help offset those challenges — allowing for a new director of teaching position to be added, in addition to two specialists focusing on improving lagging content areas.

Lorain Schools Superintendent Cheryl Atkinson said the district decided before the test results that it would implement a new comprehensive reading model for the upcoming school year, and it would likely take another two years before some of the gains of the districtwide reform would kick in.

Many variables affected the results, she said, including the layoff of a third of the district’s teaching faculty last year.

“We understood that (the layoffs) were going to have an impact and it probably wasn’t going to be a positive one,” Atkinson said. “But achievement must go up — that’s what we owe to our students, our parents and our community.”

Contact Stephen Szucs at 329-7129 or sszucs@chroniclet.com.

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