INNISFAIL - The Chinook’s Edge School Division (CESD) 2022-23 eduction results report has identified improvements in overall literacy and numeracy in the school district.
The 11,000-student CESD is headquartered in Innisfail and includes schools across the region. The division is required to prepare the report under the Education Act and the Fiscal Planning and Transparency Act.
“The board is committed to using the results in this report, to the best of its abilities, to improve outcomes for students and to ensure that all students in the school authority can acquire the knowledge, skills and attitudes they need to be successful and contributing members of society,” said chair Holly Bilton.
“A new normal was becoming apparent, one where teachers needed to re-calibrate expectations, incorporate teaching of social skills, and address learning gaps. While many of our students and families were able to adjust to the context of the past three years, some struggled to adjust to full school days and needed social emotional supports.”
The report looked at the division’s three principal education assurance goals: academic excellence; social emotional well-being; and career connections.
Regarding academic excellence, the report identified that the “team of parent, student and teacher is integral to academic success, the disruption to in-person learning (caused by the pandemic) has resulted in learning gaps and delay, and collaboration is integral for staff members to support student learning such as collaborative response and course planning.”
Regarding social emotional well-being the report identified that “both staff and student wellness must be a priority as we establish a path forward in education, supporting student attendance is key to closing learning gaps and connecting students to their school environments, and collaboration is vital to supporting students with complex needs.”
Regarding career connections, the report identified that “pathway and skill development from grades 7-11 continue to be an important strategy in successful post-secondary transition, that students must be connected to areas of passion such as extra-curricular sports and clubs, dual credit opportunities, and that dual credit collegiate experiences are beneficial in supporting high school completion.”
The division saw significant increases in student foundational literacy knowledge over the course of the 2022-23 school year.
“The combination of additional resources to support individualized and small group instruction combined with the explicit instruction of foundational phonics instruction moved a significant portion of our at-risk Grade 1-3 population into the acceptable range,” the report states.
The division also saw a marked improvement in the area of numeracy compared with 2021-22.
“CESD students significantly increased their overall numeracy performance over the course of the 2022-23 school year,” the report states. “This increase was due to the use of disruption funding to allow individual and small group support of our at-risk students, and additional professional development support related to new curriculum implementation.”
The percentage of parents, student and teachers that are reported satisfied with the quality of education students are receiving declined slightly, falling from 88.1 to 87.3, with the parent alone rate falling from 82.2 to 80.3.
“We have expanded our Parents Matter group to understand the declining trend that we are seeing in parental satisfaction, and hope to demonstrate improvement in this measure,” the report states.
The percentage of teachers, parents and students who are satisfied that students model the characteristics of active citizenship fell from 78.4 to 76.9, with the parent alone rate falling from 71.7 to 68.
“We continue to see some divisiveness in our communities around topics such as immunization, sexual orientation and gender identity and a general mistrust in government operations. These controversies seep into the perceptions of students around citizenship in our schools,” the report states.
The high school to post-secondary transition rate increased from 53.3 per cent to 54 per cent, while the three-year high school completion rate remained steady, moving from 83.6 to 83.4 per cent.
“This is the culmination of efforts from Grade 1 to Grade 12 as teachers, support staff, administrators, and division office staff members work together at all stages to support attendance, academic success, and provide support and interventions as needed,” the report states.
The complete report is available on the CESD website.
