INNISFAIL – Senior students at Innisfail High School are among the best in the province.
Recent reports have indicated a strong academic performance by Innisfail’s Grade 12 students.
“We always knew Innisfail students were capable. The teachers are working hard and the kids are putting the time and the energy in to be successful,” said Wayne Pineau, principal. “Innisfail kids are performing and that’s the best part.”
Two reports published last fall ranked Alberta’s high schools, based on Grade 12 statistics. The information is taken from Alberta Education.
The Fraser Institute, an independent, research and educational organization, publishes a report card on Alberta’s high schools every year.
“In last year’s results (for the 2016-17 academic year) on the Fraser report, we were ranked 28th in the province out of 262 schools,” said Pineau.
Another report, published by Eight Leaves, a group of software developers and data scientists, also gave Innisfail High School high marks for its Grade 12 results.
“We’re ranked 41st out of 420 schools, so we’re in the top 10 per cent,” said Pineau. “We’re about 10.3 per cent on the Fraser report and 9.6 with Eight Leaves.”
Pineau noted the improvement in senior students' academic performance over the past five years, from the bottom third to the top 10 per cent in the province.
“Over the last five years our exam averages went up by 12 per cent. The number of kids who failed dropped from 23 per cent to under five per cent,” explained Pineau. “We were running somewhere between 10 and 12 per cent (for) the difference between their school mark and their exam mark and now we’re about 2.5 per cent."
The diploma completion rate was a highlight for Pineau.
“In 2013, the school sat at 82.4 per cent and now it has increased to 90.0,” he said. “Before that we were running at about the provincial average, which is about 69 per cent of our kids were graduating.”
Pineau said he is pleased to see the hard work by staff and students pay off.
“Chinook’s Edge School Division and the staff at our school here have worked very hard in a concerted effort to make sure we’re covering the key things we need to do, to make sure that our kids can be successful,” Pineau concluded.
