Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools is investigating why it experienced a significant decrease in the number of students moving on to post-secondary education last year.
The division’s official transition rate dropped from 71.4 per cent to 62.9 per cent in one year. The rate measures the percentage of students who enter a post-secondary program within six years of entering Grade 10. The provincial average for the same period was 59.8 per cent.
Catholic division superintendent David Keohane told trustees Monday evening that a couple of the division’s four high schools are running counter to the trend while he’s asked the others to try and pin down the reason for the change and come up with a strategy for addressing it.
“We’re exploring the variables to try and turn it around,” said Keohane, who wouldn’t share details about which schools were most affected.
The division’s three-year high school completion rate dropped from 77.2 per cent to 74.9 per cent. This is still higher than the provincial average of 71.5 per cent. Meanwhile, the division’s dropout rate improved to 3.3 per cent from 3.4 per cent the previous year. The provincial rate was 4.3 per cent.
The division also measures how safe and caring its schools are, with its survey returning a consistent rating that is slightly more than 89 per cent. Keohane felt this measure was more important than transition rates.
“Of all the indicators to control, that’s the toughest because they’re gone from our system for a couple of years,” Keohane said.
St. Albert schools traditionally have transition rates that are substantially higher than the provincial average.
The one-year decrease can be partly explained by a change in the way Alberta Education calculates the rate, since the provincial department no longer counts students enrolled in academic upgrading as having transitioned to post secondary, Keohane said.
The Protestant district enjoyed a boost to its transition rate to 70.5 per cent from 62.6 per cent the year before, said superintendent Barry Wowk. He cautioned against reading too much importance into the figures.
“You get some years, the Grade 12s all go on. Some years they don’t,” he said.
St. Albert Protestant Schools has dropped a policy that officially supported the wearing of cultural and religious artifacts in district schools.
The board felt the policy was no longer necessary because Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides religious and cultural freedom, a point bolstered by a 2006 Supreme Court decision upholding the rights of Sikhs to wear a kirpan — a ceremonial dagger — to school.
“There really is no need for that policy now. We haven’t changed our practice,” said board chair Morag Pansegrau.
“I believe the policy came in at a time when it was more sensitive and we wanted to give our people reassurance that religious artifacts were honoured in our schools.”
A recent court decision has clarified the issue and the board wanted to clean up its policies so they weren’t duplicating “the laws of the land,” Pansegrau said.
The board does a cyclical review of its policies at least every seven years. The policy first came into force in 1997 and was last reviewed in 2002.
The policy change was open to stakeholder input until April 15 but no one came forward, Pansegrau said.
The policy had stated that the board “supports the wearing or display of personal, cultural or religious objects that are in keeping with a safe and caring school environment.”
