HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2009-03-05, Page 7THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2009. PAGE 7.
Into the oven
Terry Nethery was on the oven station last week for Blyth’s
Shrove Tuesday dinner at Memorial Hall. The dinner kicked
off at 5 p.m., with a line out the door just after the dinner bell
rang and the pancakes started flowing. (Shawn Loughlin photo)
The percentage of graduating
Grade 8 students from Catholic
elementary schools who continued
into Catholic secondary schools
dropped slightly in Huron and
Perth Counties between 2007 and
2008.
So it’s fitting that – in keeping
with a commitment made by
administration in the Huron-Perth
Catholic District School Board’s
five-year strategic plan – a
consultation process has begun to
ask how students might be
encouraged to continue right
through to Grade 12 in the Catholic
education system.
“We believe the greatest value of a
Catholic education comes when a
student is enrolled from
kindergarten to Grade 12,” explained
education superintendent Dan Parr,
following a presentation to trustees
at a regular meeting Monday, Feb.
23.
In the presentation, Parr described
how the percentage of graduating
Grade 8s moving on to the board’s
secondary schools was 82 per cent in
Huron and 97 per cent in Perth in
2007.
But last year, only 79 per cent of
graduating Huron County Grade 8s
moved on to St. Anne’s high school
in Clinton, while 84 per cent of
Perth County Grade 8s moved on to
St. Michael in Stratford.
In keeping with the Strategic Plan
and in response to the dropping
“Grade 8 to Grade 9 retention rate,”
a steering committee met earlier this
year. Its stated goal is “to
communicate the value of a K-12
Catholic education proactively and
effectively.”
Parr told trustees that the
committee decided the best way to
begin that process is to hold “focus
groups” with parents, teachers and
principals of students in Grades 6, 7
and 8. And those focus group
meetings have already been
scheduled: March 11 at St. Mikes
and March 12 at St. Anne’s.
Following those meetings,
teachers will take the message to the
students themselves. The goal will
be to seek input about the best ways
to communicate to the wider
community the value of a K-12
Catholic education.
In an interview, Parr stressed that
the board is not seeking to pull
students away from other school
boards, but simply to retain those
who might choose partway through
their education to move to another
system.
“It’s really about being the very
best Catholic education system we
can be. And that means listening to
our stakeholders,” he said.
Elementary schools in Seaforth
and Ethel were identified by the
Fraser Institute, as it released its
latest annual ranking of Ontario
schools on Sunday, March 1.
Seaforth Public School and Grey
Central Public School were on a list
of 20 facilities referred to by the
socio-economic thinktank as being
located “in neighbourhoods that
have among the lowest average
parental incomes” in the province,
yet are among “the fastest
improving” in terms of student
achievement.
“This clearly shows that
elementary schools don’t need to be
located in wealthy neighbourhoods
to improve and be successful,” said
Peter Cowley, the Fraser Institute’s
director of school performance
studies, in a news release.
“Teachers and administrators in
these schools have found ways to
beat the odds and help their students
do better than might be predicted by
their families’ average income.”
The independent organization,
with offices in Calgary, Vancouver,
Toronto, Montreal and the United
States, undertakes regular analyses
of statistics related to such topics as
education, healthcare, taxation and
immigration. It is particularly well-
known across Canada for its annual
comparisons of schools and
healthcare providers.
According to the organization’s
website, located at
www.fraserinstitute.org (where you
can also find the latest “Report Card
on Ontario’s Elementary Schools”),
determinations about the student
success of each Ontario elementary
school is based on the school’s
results in the annual, provincially-
standardized Grade 3 and Grade 6
tests from the Education Quality and
Accountability Office (EQAO).
The 2009 schools report card
shows the greatest four-year
improvement in EQAO scores
occurred at Sacred Heart elementary
school in Espanola – one of the
schools on the list of 20 from areas
with below-average parental
income. It went from an EQAO
success rating of 2.5 in 2004 to 7.5
in 2008. The report lists average
parental income in Espanola as
$47,300.
Seaforth improved from a rating
of 5.3 to 7.3 over the four years. AndGrey Central improved from 2.8 to5.5. Average parental income levelsfor the two schools are listed as
$48,700 and $45,400, respectively.
John Herbert, assessment and
evaluation co-ordinator for the Avon
Maitland board, rejected the notion
of comparing schools based on
income levels gleaned from
Statistics Canada census data. He
noted the Statscan numbers track
income in the community, but not
necessarily among families with
children in the schools.
Herbert said there are a number of
Avon Maitland schools in the Fraser
Institute report for which average
parental incomes is listed as “not
available.”
Overall, students at Zurich Public
School achieved the most significant
four-year improvement in Huron and
Perth Counties. Between 2004-08,
the EQAO success rating at that
school rose from 3.9 to 7.8. On the
other side of the coin, success
ratings at Listowel Central Public
School fell from 6.0 to 3.3.
The highest EQAO success rating
in 2008 alone in the two counties
was at St. Aloysius Catholicelementary school in Stratford – at9.5 (up from 8.0 in 2004).Herbert said the Avon Maitland
board “saw some tremendous
improvements” in achievement
levels in the writing portion of last
year’s EQAO tests due to a heavy
focus on that area.
But he admitted that type of focus
can sometimes lead to decreases in
achievement levels in other areas –
something that happened in some
schools last year in reading and, to a
lesser extent, Math.
He added that, even in Grey
Central and Seaforth, there were
less-than-satisfactory improvements
in some areas. But overall, the
schools excelled.
“I like to echo what the EQAO has
said repeatedly,” the Avon Maitland
administrator said, when asked
about potential comparisons based
on the Fraser Institute report. “It’s all
about allowing schools to see where
they are compared to the provincial
average . . . It’s nothing about
ranking schools, and if we start to
use these figures in that fashion, it’s
nothing about helping students.”
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Flapjacks
Ken Jones, left, and Bill Clark were on the griddle making
pancakes last week at the Shrove Tuesday dinner in
Brussels at St. Paul’s Anglican Church. (Shawn Loughlin photo)
Local elementary schoolsrank high on Fraser list By Stew SlaterSpecial to The Citizen
Fewer Grade 8s continuing
in Catholic school system
By Stew Slater
Special to The Citizen