School may just be starting but the report cards are in for Lawrence County area schools, setting clear targets for the individual districts.

The Ohio Department of Education released its annual grades that rank individual schools and entire districts on a variety of benchmarks.

Some districts — Ironton, South Point, Chesapeake — made solid strides while others — Fairland, Rock Hill, Green — fell off a little from prior years but now have a clear roadmap toward areas that need improvement. Congratulations to all the districts for their hard work, none of which were listed as under academic watch or academic emergency.

But districts and schools should only look at this as one measure of success that may not take into account all the positive things going on in Lawrence County’s classrooms

The state’s scores are based on a variety of factors but standardized test scores are among the key data sets that are aggregated. And while testing is certainly important there are lots of factors that can be conducive to students’ successes in life.

Course offerings, post secondary education pathways and extracurricular activities are just a few areas that may not show up on paper.

So those scoring well should certainly congratulate themselves on all the hard work and a job well done. Those whose scores were lower than desired should use this as a tool to get better.

Students succeeding is the most important measure of how well a district is doing and we hope all schools use these report cards as a tool and keep striving for straight A’s.