The Purpose of Life is a Life with Purpose

Our Grade 12 students celebrated with their Graduation Dance this past Friday night.

For all intents and purposes, their behaviour was outstanding!  They were respectful, composed, elegant and had a great time! 

I mentioned to our students before the night began that they should be proud of their achievements thus far.  Their upcoming graduation is the culmination of hard work, commitment and continuous improvement.  In addition, they should feel successful that they are celebrating such a fact as they take one more step in their journey towards adulthood.

Our staff is very proud of you and took the time to learn what for many of us (myself included) was a complicated dance routine.  I hope that you enjoyed our flash dance as it was in your honour.

You are the essence of God's spirit and our Catholic Learning Community hopes that you continue to shine his light as you continue to build a life with purpose.

Thanks for reading.  Looking forward to your comments.

Graduation Dance - May 27, 2011

Last year at around this time I posted a rather controversial blog regarding my thoughts on the unruly behaviour of our students at the Graduation Dance.

I received more comments to that blog than any other post before or since.  I had just as many supporters as detractors for the record.

Time and consideration has had our Graduation planning committee hire a security company in addition to the usual duo of police officers. 

The security company will be checking every student seeking admission to our dance for alcohol, drugs and/or weapons.  They will be making the determination to deny admittance to students that appear to be under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.  

Please understand that the staff at CtK will not be making this decision.  Students attending the Graduation Dance have already received this important message from our Vice-Principals. 

Our role will be to supervise the students granted admittance to celebrate what for all intents and purposes is the culmination of four years of hard work and dedication to reach the goal of graduation. 

We would kindly ask parents/guardians to ensure that their children refrain from consuming any alcohol prior to this event.  Your partnership in  this regard is appreciated.

Thanks for reading.  Looking forward to your comments.

The Fraser Report

The 2009-2010 Fraser Report for Secondary Schools was released a week ago. It is a “report card” on Ontario schools. The report collects a variety of data of relevant objective indicators of school performance. Specifically, the Fraser Report isolates the results of each school's Grade 10 Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) and Grade 9 Math EQAO Assessment.

We are now ranked at the top of our board and sixth in all of Halton.

CtK achieved a score of 7.8/10. Overall, in the Province of Ontario, we ranked 79/727 Secondary Schools.

In the area of Grade 9 Academic Math, CtK's average level was 3.0 on a scale of 1-4.  In the area of Grade 9 Applied Math, our average level was 2.6 on a scale of 1-4.

With respect to the OSSLT, we had a 94.1% success rate.

Last but not least is an indicator that speaks volumes in terms of how close the rest of our students achieved on the OSSLT and the Math EQAO.  Specifically, the percentage of students that were not successful on the literacy test and did not achieve the standard of at least a level 3 on the Math Assessment. Our percentage has fallen every year and is now at 15.5%.  This indicates that more and more of our students are meeting the standard in the OSSLT and EQAO Math Assessment.

http://ontario.compareschoolrankings.org/secondary/Christ_the_King_Catholic_Secondary_School/Georgetown/Report_Card.aspx

As a Commerce graduate, the analysis of data and the use of it to drive our school improvement planning is something of which I spend a great deal of time.  Some of my colleagues and staff would concur.  Our board and even the Ministry of Education stresses the importance of "data-driven" decision-making.

I am the first to acknowledge that the Fraser Report doesn't provide the entire picture of what many would deem a successful school.  While it may provide a piece of the very complicated puzzle that defines a school's success, it doesn't measure credit accumulation, graduation, retention and pass rates for example.  These are key data pieces that schools use to monitor success.

However, what about the intangibles?  How do you effectively measure the success of a school in nurturing variables such as compassion, resiliency, creativity, critical thinking, happiness, self-esteem, school spirit, and equity?  I suppose data can help you gleam suppositions of these variables and surveys may provide some insight but there is always a certain probability of error and bias.  In many cases, these pieces can only be ascertained through anecdotal evidence and through relationship building.

How does one truly measure our cultural monolith...Catholic Leadership Conference... held every year during Catholic Education Week?  Our Catholic Learning Community just knows that it is a very important and famously successful initiative because of what we see, hear and feel during this event.

How does one truly measure the success of our inaugural Grade 8 Sleepover this past weekend?  How will we be able to ascertain what impact this will have on these incoming Grade 9 students with respect to their success in our school over the next four or five years?

Maybe the email from a parent the night of this event thanking me for allowing the sleepover to occur and citing what a wonderful impact it had on her son is all we need to measure our success?

Below is an article from the NY Times that addresses the obsession with data.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/23/your-money/23shortcuts.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=alina%20tugend&st=cse

Thanks for reading.  Looking forward to your comments.

Happy Mother's Day!

The beauty of the Lord abides in a mother’s love.

Mothers are often the back bone and essence of every family.

Mothers nurture, protect, instill confidence, love and provide guidance and direction.

Mothers tend to be the primary caregiver and as such often further entrench the inherent bond with their children. 

Where there is a happy father, I can assure you that the odds are very good that there is a mother that has profoundly had a hand in this happiness.

Mothers are so significant to families that their loss is felt deeply regardless of our age.  To these families, my prayers and thoughts go out to you on this day in particular.

Let me sign off with acknowledging Mary, Jesus' mother.  We should keep in mind that when we pray the Rosary, we are praying WITH Mary to Jesus.

Thanks for reading. Looking forward to your comments.

Virtual Voting

I was listening to the Mike Stafford morning show on AM 640.  His topic addressed whether or not we should be given the opportunity to vote online for the federal election.  This service was available for the first time in Burlington, Ontario for our 2010 Municipal Elections.  Did I vote online?  Not this time.

What about you?  Would you vote online?

Stafford had a flurry of listeners call in to give their opinions.  With no surprise, the feedback flipped back and forth in favour or not in favour of being able to vote online.

Proponents argued that due to our fast pace, facebook, twitter, "bbm" ing, texting society, such a service would be well received and dramatically increase the participation rate of voting by Canadians.

Opponents argued that has society decayed that much that we were unable to personally go to a voting station and place our vote?  This would allow for intensive reflection regarding the merits of the candidates and who would inevitably be their choice.  These people cited that online voters would not give the time required to make conscientious decisions.  In fact, they worried that the fringe groups like the Rhinoceros Party (still hovering in Quebec according to Stafford) would get a ton of votes due to the ease of pointing and clicking online.

Below is a link to the podcast of this show if you are interested.

http://www.640toronto.com/HostsandShows/MikeStafford/Audio.aspx

Thanks for reading.  Looking forward to your comments.