As dozens of students throughout Chinook's Edge School Division don caps and gowns to celebrate the end of their high school careers, the schools themselves are also celebrating “all time high” graduation completion rates.
The school division's overall three-year high school completion rate for 2013 was 81 per cent, up from 78.2 per cent the year before and well above the provincial three-year completion rate for 2013 of 74.9 per cent.
The completion rates, which were released last month, show the percentage of students graduating within three years of entering high school and this data comes from a comparison of the number of students in graduating classes at each school in 2013 compared to the number of students enrolled in Grade 10 classes at each school three years earlier.
Out of five school division high schools reached by the Mountain View Gazette, Olds High School had the highest three-year graduation completion rate at 92.2 per cent, compared to 88.1 for 2012.
Carstairs' Hugh Sutherland School had the next highest completion rate at 90.7 per cent, compared to 86.9 per cent in 2012, and Sundre High School's 2013 completion rate was 89 per cent, up slightly from 88.9 per cent in 2012.
Innisfail High School's three-year completion rate jumped from 71.8 per cent in 2012 to 79 per cent in 2013.
Only Didsbury High School's three-year completion rate dipped in 2013 compared to 2012 out of the five high schools reached for data for this story, from 85.8 per cent to 83.5 per cent.
The provincial completion rates for 2013 also improved compared to data from five years earlier with the three-year high school completion rate increasing from 71.5 per cent in 2009 and the five-year high school completion rate jumping from 79 per cent in 2009 to 81.7 per cent in 2013.
Ray Hoppins, the school division's associate superintendent, said these completion rates are an “all time high” for the school division.
“We've never in the history of Chinook's Edge School Division, or even the divisions that made it up beforehand, have ever had high school completion rates that high,” he said.
And this success, Hoppins added, is the result of a “combination of many factors,” including an emphasis on strong relationships between teachers and students.
“We spend a lot of time fostering those positive relationships and we believe that that plays an important role in helping students get to that high school completion stage,” he said, adding that for the past three years, the school division has also focused on “quality learning environments.”
“And a big part of the quality learning environment is the personalization of learning.”
Hoppins said the school division has come to recognize there are different “pathways” to successful high school completion including off-campus programs such as the registered apprenticeship program, work experience programs and dual-credit opportunities.
These programs, he said, can reach more students, especially those who have difficulty learning within traditional systems.
“We have a large number of students who spend half of their day in grades 11 and 12 learning in environments outside the school walls. It's a very successful transition to post-secondary and careers.”
The school division also has to credit “pretty amazing levels” of parental support for the high graduation completion rates in the region, Hoppins added.
“Being able to work together with the teacher and the parent and the student, that's usually where you get your best success when it comes to high school completion.”
Focusing on the needs of individual students and redesigning learning environments in high schools are also behind increased success in sending more students to convocation in the school division, Hoppins said.
Sundre High School principal Jason Drent said his school has made adjustments to offer alternative forms of learning for students.
For example, he said, the school's Learning Centre is an “unstructured environment.”
“Which means students will still have schedules in the day but they have the opportunity to choose what they work on and the pace at which they work on it.”
In that environment, Drent added, some students will complete courses twice as fast as in a traditional learning environment while some students will need extra time.
“The Learning Centre gives us that flexibility.”
The centre also allows students who struggle with attendance opportunities to keep up with the curriculum.
“So when you're on Lesson 1 and then you miss tomorrow, you've pressed a pause button,” Drent said. “When you come back a day later, two days later, you can press the play button again and you're right back where you left off.”
Overall, he said, the school is working to identify students who are the most at risk of not graduating as soon as possible and teachers are doing a good job of having conversations with those students about what they need to be engaged and motivated to complete their high school career.
“We're having that conversation with students so that they get a better understanding about who they are as a learner.”
Hoppins said along with a different way of looking at learning in the school division comes new attitudes from students.
“I've seen a greater emphasis from students on wanting to know what they're going to do as far as post-secondary learning or career opportunities,” he said, adding students in Grade 10 are now looking at opportunities beyond graduation and planning ahead.
“You know how that translates. If you have a clear goal beyond the graduation stage, graduation stage just becomes part of the process. They're talking about life after Grade 12 more than ever before.”
