BRADFORD – Bradford Schools’ state report card results were a bit of a mixed bag this year, but it’s not all about the grades anyway.

“A district report card should never be what motivates us to do our best work, regardless of whether it shows all A’s or all F’s,” said Bradford Exempted Village School District Superintendent Ken Miller. “We are in the business of helping our students be successful, not the students others want to compare us to.

“We must be willing to embrace high expectations — individually and collectively, consistently deliver high effective instruction, and never lose focus of what really matters — our students.”

The report cards covered testing that took place in the 2014-15 school year, and some have questioned the value of this year’s results. Changing standards, long hours, technical issues and the late arrival of results have had many questioning if there was even a point to it all this year.

State Rep. Teresa Fedor, D-Toledo, and ranking minority member of the House Education Committee, and State Board of Education member A.J. Wagner have essentially called on the public to ignore this year’s results, calling them inaccurate and even “harmful.”

Peggy Lehner, chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee told The Columbus Dispatch, “The scores will drop. It is not to be taken as a sign that anything bad is happening in your school. Any data that was derived from the test last year, no one should really pay any attention to it.”

Miller said more important than the grades is the effort put into constantly improving.

“We simply need to do our best — every single day,” Miller said. “In the end, good things will come from our efforts, regardless of which goals we are working to accomplish.”

Bradford’s final tally came up to three A’s, two B’s, one C, two D’s and one F.

“The report card is not a perfect representation of student achievement at Bradford Exempted Village Schools or the quality of education our staff provides our students,” Miller said. “In essence, students were taking multiple assessments at relatively the same time, which led to testing fatigue. As a result, students were unable to give their best effort on each assessment, and the results clearly do not reflect the instruction they received from our teachers.”

Achievement is meant to measure how well the students are doing, based on how many passed the state test and how well they did on it.

Progress is meant to show how much the students are learning (in math and reading, grade 4-8). Did the students get a year’s worth of growth in a year? Or more, or less?

Gap closing shows how well all students are doing in the district in reading, math and graduation, regardless of income, race, ethnicity or disability.

Bradford’s state report card results from the 2014-15 school year were as follows:

• Achievement: performance index (how many passed the test), 74.9 percent, C; indicators met (how well they did), 69.7 percent, D;

• Progress: overall, A; gifted, not reported; students with disabilities, B; lowest 20 percent in achievement, A;

• Gap closing: 50 percent, F.

Indicators met measures the percent of students who passed the state tests. The breakdown of results follows:

• Third grade: math, 55.3 percent; reading, 74.5 percent;

• Fourth grade: math, 89.5 percent; reading, 84.2 percent; social studies, 81.6 percent;

• Fifth grade: math, 70.3 percent; reading, 78.4 percent; science, 48.6 percent;

• Sixth grade: math, 67.4 percent; reading, 65.1 percent; social studies, 53.5 percent;

• Seventh grade: math, 41.3 percent; reading, 56.8 percent;

• Eighth grade: math, 14.3 percent; reading, 75.8 percent; science, 75.8 percent;

• 10th grade, Ohio Graduation Test: math, 80.5 percent; reading, 87.8 perccent; science, 75.6 percent; social studies, 85.4 percent; writing, 87.8 percent;

• 11th grade, OGT: math, 91.9 percent; reading, 91.9 percent; science, 89.2 percent; social studies, 89.2 percent; and writing, 91.9 percent.