Buckeye On-Line School for Success

Buckeye On-Line School for Success is a fully online public alternative school serving grades K–12 with 516 students in East Liverpool, Ohio, in Columbiana County, and it is unusual in that it makes up its own district rather than belonging to a local one.

On Ohio's state tests, results are mixed rather than uniformly weak. Nineteen of twenty assessments landed below the state average, with an average gap of about 13 points, but that average hides a wide split. Older students perform close to state norms — 8th grade science (68.1%) actually beat the state (61.2%), and high school End-of-Course results averaged only 7.4 points below — while the youngest students trail badly, especially in math: 3rd grade math was 29.6% versus 62.1% statewide, and 4th grade math 33.3% versus 67.3%. Math is the school's deepest weakness across all grades. The 2025–26 year was the strongest of the four years reviewed, with 15 of 20 assessments improving and 10 hitting four-year highs, so this looks like a promising turn rather than a settled trend.

Absenteeism is the trend moving the wrong way: chronic absenteeism rose from 12.7% in 2021–22 to 23.8% in 2025–26, nearly doubling. That is roughly in line with the Southern Local average of 22.3%. The graduation rate is volatile, ranging from 59.0% to 74.7% with no clear direction, and is best read as a range rather than a trend. Compared with the only nearby online alternative, Southern Online Academy (10 students), Buckeye On-Line is about 50 times larger and outperformed it by 21.4 points on the one shared test. Note that the school does not report free/reduced-lunch data, so its student economic profile is unknown, and spending figures are seven years old.