The Lakeland Catholic School District (LCSD) was pleased with their Annual Education Results Report (AERR) and Accountability Pillar results, which saw them score high across many categories this year.
“Actually, we were quite pleased with our results,” expressed board chair Mary Anne Penner. “There’s always room for improvement, and in many areas where it says maintained, we couldn’t go any higher than we already are. We’re pretty pleased with our numbers.”
Alberta Education released the official Acountability Pillar results, however the AERR outcomes were still unofficial.
For their Accountability Pillar results, they saw a significant improvement in their education quality from the previous year’s result of 89.6 per cent. This year, LCSD scored 92.2 per cent.
Safe and caring schools was maintained at 89.6 per cent, which was just a slight change from the previous three years of 90.2 per cent.
Their score for program of studies remained similar to the past three years at 81.5 per cent.
Their drop out rate was below the province’s 2.3 per cent at 1.3 per cent, which Penner saw as an achievement.
“We’re always pleased with our drop out rate, which is just a little over one per cent. That’s huge considering the province’s is a full per cent higher than ours,” she exclaimed.
Their high school completion rate also surpasses the province’s 78 per cent, coming in at 84.5 per cent.
The Provincial Achievement Test (PAT) saw the students who got acceptable scores for Kindergarten to Grade 9 at 69.9 per cent was maintained, and their excellent scores also saw a decline of five per cent this year to 10.7 per cent.
Superintendent Joe Arruda noted that was because of a change to the test this year in Grade 6 and 9 mathematics components. This time around students were expected to complete one of the two parts without the use of a calculator.
“We’ve already had several meetings with our principals to take a look at the mathematics issue, and we’ve brought together our teachers who are teaching mathematics to Grade 6 and 9. We brought in all the teachers involved to analyze the results, and share best practices. We brought in teachers who did well, and those teachers were (helping) the younger teachers who are new to the profession who struggled with mathematics last year,” detailed Arruda.
The Provincial Diploma Exams (PDE) were maintained this year, at 69.9 per cent finishing within the acceptable range, and 10.7 per cent in excellent.
LCSD’s diploma exam participation rate was significantly higher than the province’s 55.7 per cent. They had 61.4 per cent take part this year.
The Rutherford Scholarship eligibility rate came in at 74.4 per cent.
The transition rate of students attending post-secondary education after graduating from LCSD’s schools was 62.3 percent. Students rated work preparation at almost at 84 per cent, and citizenship was considered very high at 84.3 per cent.
“We work hard to ensure that our students do well, and that they learn skills that they need to be able to become whatever they’re suppose to become as they move into adulthood. Hopefully, we’re providing... a positive experience in a safe and caring environment,” Penner explained.
Arruda noted they were pleased to see their parental involvement at 80.7 per cent.
“It shows our parents are very much involved in our schools, and we appreciate the parental involvement. It’s really a mission that we have that involves all stakeholders from senior staff in our office to school administrators to teachers to student assistants and community members,” he explained.
School improvement saw an increase this year compared to last year’s 78 per cent to 80.8 per cent.
The province also looks at the First Nation, Métis, and Indigenous (FNMI) students.
In terms of the PAT results in this area, 40.4 per cent of FNMI students received acceptable results, while 6.6 per cent scored excellent.
The district’s diploma completion was above the provincial average of 77.1 per cent of students receiving acceptable at 87.3 per cent, and 6.3 per cent were excellent.
The drop out rate was 4.5 per cent, which is lower than the province’s 4.8 per cent. The high school completion rate was 78.9 percent, which is significantly higher than the 53.3 per cent provincial average.
While they were pleased with their 2017 results, Arruda expressed their dedication to bettering their results going forward.
“It’s just a matter of staying vigilant, and doing a culture of continued improvement. We always try to improve, we don’t (sit) on our morales, we want to improve the experience for our students at all times.”
In the areas that they scored high, LCSD noted there was only so much higher they could go.
“In most of those (maintained categories), we’re above the provincial average in pretty well every area there of what we have. We can’t do much better than that,” Penner said.
Arruda added, “A lot of the marks we have are in the 90s, and it’s difficult to improve on that overall rating of 90. Basically, we just want to maintain those.”