Head of the class

St Paul and St. Pius X Schools have tied as the highest-ranking schools in the city, according to the latest Fraser Institute results.

The two Catholic District School Board elementary schools both ranked 142nd out of 2,714 other schools across the province and scoring an 8.6 out of 10. McKellar Park Central ranked the lowest among the city’s schools coming in at No. 2,639, 70 spots away from last place and scoring two out of 10.

Seven of the top 10 ranked in the city belonged to the Catholic District School Board. The Lakehead Public School Board had three with one of the schools being ranked in the top five.

St. Thomas Aquinas came in second with No. 313. Nor’Wester View is the Lakehead Public School’s top ranked school at No. 392. Corpus Christi rounded out the top five with No. 470.

Holy Cross (567), Holy Family (622), St. Francis (676), Five Mile (676) and Gron Morgan (829) finishes the top 10.

The study also shows elementary schools across the province have also shown improvement in their academic performances. Of the improved schools, 64 are in the GTA, 44 in southwestern Ontario, 36 in the North and 23 in the eastern areas of the province.

"This is why the Fraser Institute school report card is the go-to source for measuring academic improvement: it highlights school success stories from Murillo in the west to Cornwall in the east and from Timmins in the north to Windsor in the south," said Peter Cowley, Fraser Institute director of school performance studies, in a media release.

"Our report shows that all schools are capable of improvement, regardless of the personal or family challenges their students might face. If educators want to help students learn and improve, they should be talking to these schools."

The Fraser Institute report card looks at the public, Catholic and francophone elementary schools based on nine academic indicators using data from the annual province-wide test. These tests include reading, writing and math.

The following is a list of how elementary schools in the Thunder Bay area performed, according to the Fraser Institute. The first number is the overall ranking, out of 2,714 schools. The number in parentheses is the score given each school:

142. St. Paul (8.6)
142. St. Pius X (8.6)
313. St. Thomas Aquinas (8)
392. Nor’Wester View (7.8)
470. Corpus Christi (7.6)
567. Holy Cross (7.4)
622. Holy Family (7.3)
676. St. Francis (7.2)
676. Five Mile (7.2)
829. Gron Morgan (6.9)
1173. St. Elizabeth (6.4)
1239. St. Martin (6.3)
1359. St. Bernard (6.1)
1359. Agnew H. Johnston (6.1)
1463. Franco-Supérieur (5.9)
1518. Edgewater Park (5.8)
1638. Woodcrest (5.6)
1638. Claude E. Garton (5.6)
1760. Westmount (5.4)
1917. Ogden Community (5.1)
1968. Our Lady of Charity (5)
2070. C.D. Howe (4.8)
2110. St. Jude (4.7)
2188. St. James (4.5)
2228. St. Margaret (4.4)
2228. Vance Chapman (4.4)
2271. Valley Central (4.3)
2543. Sherbrooke (3)
2617. Algonquin Avenue (2.3)
2639. McKellar Park Central (2)

The complete results of all 2,714 schools are available at the institute’s website.