THUNDER BAY – A pair of Catholic schools earned top marks in last year’s provincial standard literacy test.
St. Patrick High School and St. Ignatius High School led city high schools in the Education Quality and Accountability Office administered Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test, where they had 88 per cent and 85 per cent of students writing the test for the first time achieve a passing score.
The results were released Wednesday and showed both schools surpassed the provincial average pass rate of 82 per cent for the test, which is a requirement for students to pass to receive a high school diploma.
For St. Patrick, the result is an increase of 11 per cent compared to last year, when 77 per cent of first time writers were successful.
“We do have a lot of strategies we adopt between the two schools,” said J.P. Tennier, the board’s superintendent of education. “There is a team and we look at the results. There are a lot of detailed results and a lot of good news in our results because a lot of our students who struggled before did do well on that test this year.”
The numbers weren’t so rosy for the Lakehead Public School Board, which at 78 per cent was below the provincial average.
The highest mark for the public board was achieved by Hammarskjold High School, where 83 per cent of students passed. Westgate Collegiate and Vocational Institute was close behind at a success rate of 82 per cent.
That was followed by Sir Winston Churchill Collegiate and Vocational Institute at 77 per cent.
Superior Collegiate and Vocational Institute came in at 67 per cent, which according to EQAO numbers is the first time in the last five years a local English high school has had a success rate lower than 70 per cent.
Sherri-Lynne Pharand, the superintendent of education for the public board, said the preparation for the test begins long before students reach Grade 10.
“The OSSLT is really a culmination of learning from earlier grades. We are looking at putting in place Grade 7, 8 9 and 10 teacher teams in place to really look at the results and see how we can intervene even earlier for those students who may be having difficult,” Pharand said.
“Literacy is foundational to success not only in school but life as well. The OSSLT results are ones we take very seriously.”
Students who are not successful with the test have the option of retaking it the next year or completing the secondary school literacy course prior to graduation.
The city’s lone French high school, École secondaire de La Vérendrye, had 86 per cent of students pass the literacy test, narrowly below the 88 per cent provincial average for the French test.
