Mason City Schools leads Warren County in enrollment, average teacher pay and state report card stars.
The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce released the 2025-26 Ohio School Report Cards on Tuesday, Sept. 15. Mason, with 9,726 students and an average classroom teacher salary of $98,632, earned the maximum 5.0-star overall rating for the second consecutive year. Kings Local School District improved from 4.0 to 4.5 stars, enrolling 4,906 students at an average classroom teacher salary of $81,514.
Mason's enrollment dwarfs every other district in the county. Second-place Springboro has 5,763 students, nearly 4,000 fewer than Mason.
Yet the numbers across all 17 districts tell a more complicated story, according to a Warren County Post analysis published the same day. Higher teacher pay does not track neatly with higher star ratings.
High pay doesn't always mean high marks
Loveland City, the eighth-largest district with 3,935 students, pays its classroom teachers an average of $91,225, second only to Mason. Loveland earned 5.0 stars. Franklin City, ranked 13th in enrollment at 2,548 students, pays the fourth-highest average salary at $82,117 but earned just 3.0 stars.
On the flip side, Little Miami Local serves 5,359 students and pays the second-lowest average salary among the 17 districts at $68,843. It still earned 4.5 stars. Blanchester Local has both the smallest enrollment (1,096 students) and the lowest average salary ($64,607) yet also earned 4.5 stars.
Middletown City, the third-largest district at 5,620 students with an average teacher salary of $76,259, earned the lowest rating in the group. It got 2.0 stars.
How Ohio calculates the ratings
Ohio calculates the overall star rating from six components: Achievement and Progress each account for 25%. Graduation, Gap Closing, Early Literacy and College, Career, Workforce and Military Readiness each account for 12.5%. Three stars means a district meets state standards. Five stars means it significantly exceeds them.
Statewide, 61 of Ohio's 607 K-12 public districts earned five stars, according to WYSO. English language arts proficiency hit a five-year high of 62.2%, and math proficiency reached 56.4%.
"Every subgroup that we have made progress over this last year in literacy. Every subgroup," Ohio Department of Education and Workforce Director Steve Dackin told WYSO. "I don't think we've seen that for a long time as a state."
Warren County overview
Four of the 17 Warren County-area districts earned five stars: Mason City, Loveland City, Goshen Local and Bellbrook-Sugarcreek Local. Seven earned 4.5 stars, including Kings Local, and two earned four stars, according to the Warren County Post. That means 13 of 17 districts received at least four stars.
The salary figures on the report cards reflect average pay for classroom teachers only, not administrators or other staff.
Kings Local's half-star jump from 4.0 to 4.5 matched Goshen Local and Loveland City, both of which climbed from 4.5 to 5.0 stars in 2025-26.
