Student success programs lauded

FORT FRANCES—Rainy River District School Board trustees heard updates on various programs aimed at student success at its regular meeting here Tuesday night, including the Learning to 18 Lighthouse Projects at three board schools.
At Fort Frances High School, the board built a commercial-quality kitchen last year to offer students a course in hospitality and tourism that would benefit them in the working world.
“It’s been a huge success,” said Ian Simpson, assistant to the education director.
The first run saw seven students receive credits through the course, which taught basic cooking skills and how to run a commercial kitchen.
“Those students were also responsible for the establishment of a breakfast program for disadvantaged students at Fort High and a community partnership where residents from Rainycrest Home for the Aged came to Fort High one evening each month for a dinner hosted by the students,” Simpson wrote in his report to the board.
“The second semester has seen huge growth and more innovation,” he told trustees Tuesday night.
The next course will give students the opportunity to gain both a high school credit and a credit from Confederation College, thanks to a partnership between the two institutions.
A teacher from the college has teamed up with one from Fort High to offer the course.
The class “is full to capacity as word of mouth has spread quickly amongst the student body about the practicality of this program,” Simpson’s report read.
“Great things are in the future and it is expected that demand will be heavy on this new facility when course selection is completed for 2007/08,” he added.
At Rainy River High School, the Lighthouse funding is being used to create an Alternative Learning Centre (ALC), which ran for the first time in first semester of 2006/07.
This program includes co-op, adult learning, independent learning, credit recovery, and credit rescue options.
And at Atikokan High School, staff and students are working on construction of a building for the Outers Program.
Construction has halted for the winter, but the project is expected to involve more than 100 students in construction technology classes over the three years it takes to complete.
In other news, trustees Tuesday night heard the board’s credit accumulation goals of having students earn 16 credits by the end of Grade 10 (half the amount needed to graduate from Grade 12) largely are being met.
“Studies have shown if students fail more than two credits by the end of Grade 10, they will not be as successful as students who have achieved 16 credits,” Simpson said.
“If they see they are not going to graduate with the students they know, they become demoralized,” he added.
In the 2004/05 school year, only 47 percent of the board’s students had earned 16 credits by the end of Grade 10—the lowest percentage of any board in Northwestern Ontario.
“We were in the early days of Student Success then,” Simpson noted.
By the next year, 67 percent of the board’s students had reached that goal—a 20 percent increase.
“That is the largest increase in improvement across those boards,” Simpson said.
Only the Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board has a higher success rate, with 74 percent of students earning 16 credits by the end of Grade 10 in 2005/06.
The provincial average for that year was 66 percent.
“Two years from now, that should mean that our graduation rate increases,” Simpson explained.
The board will continue to commit to programs, including the Lighthouse ones, that made these improvements possible, he added.
Meanwhile, the board’s finance/transportation committee has received a request from Atikokan High School to replace a board-owned school bus that enables students to participate in curricular and extra-curricular activities, including the Outers Program and Natural Resource Technology programs unique to the area.
The bus is in its 12th year and cannot be operated after this year.
The committee deferred its recommendation until early March, when the Ministry of Education is expected to announce its funding for transportation.
The board’s next regular meeting will be held Tuesday, March 6 at 7 p.m. at Donald Young School in Emo.