Student success on the rise

By Lyndi-Colleen Morgan

The superintendent of education for secondary schools at the Greater Essex County District School Board said students are closing in on the average scores of the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test.

Vicki Houston, superintendent of education in secondary school staffing, spoke to the Greater Essex County District School Board Nov. 3. She said the outcomes of the OSSLT 2014-2015 year are meeting board standards and the next step is to reach Ontario averages.

She said when considering a strategy aimed at achieving Ontario’s average score for the OSSLT, some of the points that will be taken into account are the results of past years and current results, the curriculums of those boards and the areas they focus in, where the learning of the information should begin. As well as considering the resources that they should be offering to students.

“We are close to the provincial average of the OSSLT test, which is 82 per cent,” said Houston. “Our board is at an average of 80 per cent for its success rate. It is close and the next step is to look into how we are going to meet the province’s average. To see why other school boards are averaging higher.”

For students at the academic level the average success rate was 94 per cent. Female students averaged 95 per cent which is two per cent higher than scores of male students in the division. The average success rate for applied students was 52 per cent, with male students at the applied level averaging 53 per cent and 50 per cent for female students.

Houston said one thing they will be looking into is the disparity in results based on gender and examining why certain groups, specifically females, are achieving higher scores than males in the OSSLT testing. They will look at the results from both this year and years prior to find areas for focus and improvement.

“Statistically, female students tend to excel in English-based learning and male students excel in math-based learning,” said Houston. “In last year’s results it was seen that male students in applied level classes averaged higher than the female students. The question we have to ask is why and then from there we will look at how we can use these tools to benefit other male students.”

She said it could be the teaching styles in those schools or the literature that is offered to male students, among other things.

This investigation process is conducted with the Education Quality and Accountability Office Grade 9 math test, which had an average success rate of 54 per cent in applied classes and 84 per cent in academic classes for the board. In Ontario there is no average to compare the board to, as some schools didn’t participate due to the work-to-rule actions in the province.

“I think the important thing to remember is that the tests are one piece of data. That is a standardized provincial assessment and taking that information as well as other information that we have around individual students is very important,” said Houston. “So it is important not to rely specifically just on EQAO or OSSLT data, but other data as well to better help individual students.”

In addition to testing results, other educational presentations at the meeting included the New Teacher Induction Program review, presentation of changes to the Pupil Accommodation Review Guideline and Community Planning Partnership Guide, policy changes for renaming of buildings and the implementation of the Math Task Force in the 2015-2016 year. These presentations will be brought back to the board after receiving feedback from the community and parents.

The Greater Essex County District School Board’s next public board meeting is Nov. 17 at the school board building on 451 Park St. W. For more information call (519)-255-3200 or visit publicboard.ca.