The Fraser Report

The 2008-2009 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 have improved for the third year in a row. Below is a comparision of our scores compared to our neighbouring Secondary Schools. Please click on the graphic to expand the view.



CtK achieved a score of 8/10 while Acton and GDHS scored 6.2 and 6.5 respectively. Overall, in the Province of Ontario, we ranked 65/722 Secondary Schools while Acton and GDHS ranked 366 and 307 respectively.

In the area of Grade 9 Academic Math, CtK's average level was 2.9 on a scale of 1-4 while Acton and GDHS were 2.8 respectively.

In the area of Grade 9 Applied Math, CtK's average level was 2.7 on a scale of 1-4 while Acton and GDHS were 2.1 and 2.3 respectively.

With respect to the OSSLT, CtK had a 95.1% success rate while Acton and GDHS had 84% and 85.9% respectively.

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. The last chart in the above graphic shows the percentage of students that were not successful on the literacy test and did not achieve the standard of a level 3 on the Math Assessment. Our percentage was 15.8% while Acton and GDHS were 25.6% and 22.5% respectively.

Our percentage has dropped relatively the most over the last three years…from 25.8 to 15.8. This indicates that more and more of our students are meeting the standard in the OSSLT and EQAO Math Assessment.

Quite frankly, our excellent results are due to analysis of data, outstanding Math and English Departments and a concerted cross-curricular literacy and numeracy plan that has been embedded in our instructional and assessment and evaluation practices.

It is my hope that our success continues because one would be hard pressed to find a more dedicated and hard-working Catholic Learning Community. Please visit the site below to examine our full results. Feel free to compare our results to the rest of our sister schools in the Halton Catholic District School Board. You will be pleasantly surprised.

http://ontario.compareschoolrankings.org/secondary/SchoolsByName.aspx

Thanks for reading. Looking forward to your comments

Staged Fights in Georgetown

Last week, we sent home telephone and email messages regarding the consequences that would be meted out to those engaged in a "staged fight", bystanders and the individuals responsible for posting the fight online.

Many parents called in worried that their son or daughter had been suspended. When told that students in our community have been planning fights and then posting them online, they were both surprised and disappointed.

Simply go to YouTube on any given day and key in terms such as Gtown Fights or CtK Fights or CtK against GDHS or any variation thereof. Some if not all of these titles may have been removed. This is due to our investigation and forewarning students with the help of our liaison officer.

Please be diligent in checking YouTube and other internet forums for our students engaging in planned fights. Our investigation revealed that alot of these fights are just for the joy of fighting. A few were over disagreements of which I am unable to divulge here.

We are taking a strong stance against this mode of engagement because we have a moral obligation to do so. As pointed out in a previous blog, we are well within our rights under the Education Act to consequence students for behaviour that is injurious to the moral tone of our school OFF OF SCHOOL PROPERTY.

We sent home warnings as partners in your children's education. We have a duty of care to ensure that our Catholic Learning Community prospers academically, emotionally, spiritually and physically.

Please contact my office if you become aware of fights that may take place or those that have been posted to the internet. Your assistance would help us greatly in our efforts to continue to promote, model and teach verbal conflict resolution skills.

Thanks for reading. Looking forward to your comments

Meco Poliziani Annual Crusader Run

This Sunday my wife and I participated in the Meco Poliziani Annual Crusader Run hosted by Assumption Catholic Secondary School. It was a great day to run 5 km with colleagues and students from the school.

Mr.Poliziani was an influential leader and teacher in the Assumption School community. This run commemorated his many contributions during his years with the Halton Catholic District School Board. Meco was instrumental in developing programs that inspired students to volunteer and give to those less fortunate.

In addition, this fundraiser supported the emergency programs of the Good Shepherd Ministries as well as the less fortunate youth from within the Assumption community.

The Good Shepherd is a charity that provides assistance to thousands of people throughout the Hamilton Diocese. Their emergency programs provide food, clothing and shelter to those in immediate need.

My wife will be a member of the Assumption staff next school year and we thought that it would be a very good start to be part of another community which honours excellent educators through supporting initiatives that help the disenfranchised and those that are in need.

Our governing and gospel values lead us to help those that are less fortunate. This is one of the reasons why we created the CtK Cares Foundation.

I would like to extend my congratulations to the staff and many students that volunteered for this event. It was heart warming to see that student volunteerism is alive and well at Assumption.

Thanks for reading. Looking forward to your comments.

Creativity

There was an interesting story about Google on the Sunday CBS Morning show this past weekend. The correspondents interviewed the key graphic artists responsible for the artistic interpretations of their company logo.

If you haven't already noticed, Google's world recognized logo is constantly changed to reflect the importance of a day, person, place or thing. The leading web search engine company also holds world-wide contests in this regard.

A panel of artists changes the appearance of their company's logo to reflect the cultures of countries around the world. For example, the visual appearance of the Google logo would be different in Canada, Russia, China, Israel and so forth on a daily basis.

Changing the appearance of a company's logo is taboo in business circles. Your company logo should precisely represent what image and/or product or service the company is marketing. Manipulating the look of the logo would diminish its effectiveness in brand awareness.

Google has torn down this conventional wisdom and has only added tremendous value to its brand by piquing the interest of its customers around the world who look forward to seeing what image it will represent on a daily basis.

It is this type of ingenuity and thinking outside of the box that goes unheralded in our classrooms and co-curricular activities.

The 2010 Halton Youth Awards for Environmental Excellence were given to students in environmental clubs and programs that have raised awareness of environmental issues in their community on April 20th.

Club Green at CtK received an award recognizing its efforts in biodiversity. Led by Ms. Typer, one of our school's many outstanding educators, Club Green has been implementing creative environmentally friendly initiatives in our Catholic Learning Community for the last three years. These efforts have catapulted our school to two Certified Silver Ecoschool standings and our first Gold certification for 2009. CtK is the only Gold Certified secondary school in the Halton Catholic District School Board.

In addition, the 2010 Halton Environmental Scholarship Awards were given to five students, once of which was Emily Dimytosh, a recent graduate of CtK. She was recognized as the founder of Practically Green Solutions, a company that helps small-businesses make the switch to an environmentally friendly workplace.

Thanks for reading. Looking forward to your comments

Cold Souls

My wife and I rented the movie "Cold Souls" over the weekend. We found it in the "Critic's Picks" section of Blockbuster.

It involved actor Paul Giamatti...playing himself....disembodying his soul to a company that specializes in this process...."The Soul Storage Company." While the movie turned out to be very entertaining, it was the first conversation between Mr. Fintstein (CEO) and Mr. Giamatti that caught my attention.

In motivating Giamatti to go through with this procedure, Fintstein cited an anecdote regarding the training of baby elephants. He stated that they are put on a short leash that is tied to a wooden peg in the ground. It trains them to not stray far as the wooden peg would stop them in their tracks. This effect is so profound that when they reach adulthood and could easily yank the peg out of the ground, they have been conditioned to think that it is an impossible task and therefore never test it.

Fintstein offers that humans never question their self-imposed limitations and the soul can end up being the wooden peg.

As educators, we strive to motivate and encourage our students to "move" their own wooden pegs to opportunities and pathways that not only enrich their lives but the lives of others.

What are you doing to "move" your wooden peg?

Thanks for reading. Looking forward to your comments.

Cycling Club Exploits

I went cycling this Sunday with a Cycling Club for the first time this year. Prior to this, the bulk of my cycling over the years has been solitary or with a friend. Life is busy and as a novice triathlete I thought that in joining this club that it would motivate me to put more kilometres on my legs than in years past.

So off we went on what would have been a 120 km journey with some hard core cyclists. I met another new member to the club as we were rolling along at speeds between 36 and 40 km an hour. This gentleman was putting in a strong effort and I wondered if he would be able to maintain such a pace once we hit the long incline from south Burlington into Dundas and then up Sydenham Hill....not once but twice!!

Well it became apparent 30 km in that he could barely keep up on modest hill inclines and was dropping back rapidly. I was pushing hard keeping up and was near the back of the pack happy to still be with the peloton. I looked back and this gentleman was not even in sight. It was at this point that I made a decision using a simple cost/benefit analysis. I came ill prepared with one bottle of electrolytes while my peers had three or four. Also, I was pushing hard and last but not least I was concerned about the rider who was nowhere to be seen.

I stopped and waited as the peloton sped away.

The gentleman was grateful that I waited as I lead him up to the top of Snake Road while he got his bearings back. We ended up putting in about 76 km together and I was resolute in my decision to stay and help.

As I reflect, this is what we do as educators on a daily basis. We stay and help. We bring students along at their pace and in accordance with their needs.

In the end, we do this as a Catholic Learning Community to build resilient, caring and productive members of our society.

Thanks for reading. Looking forward to your comments.

The Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test

April 8th, 2010 is a very important day for Grade 10 students across the province of Ontario. They will write the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) on this day.

This standardized test is one of two such assessments that students write during their tenure in secondary school. The other test is the EQAO Grade 9 Math Assessment. The difference between the two is that students must pass the OSSLT in order to graduate or achieve the literacy requirement by passing the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Course in Grade 12 if they fail the test twice.

What is your opinion on standardized tests? Can we fairly and equitably compare literacy scores or math scores for that matter of our students across the province? Detractors would cite that there are too many variables at play like demographics and socio-economics that skew results.

The Halton Catholic District School Board has been either first or second overall in the province of Ontario on the OSSLT. That is quite an accomplishment. Detractors would allude to the fact that our board is also geographically situated in one of the most affluent areas in Ontario.

While this is a generalization, one can't deny the correlation. However, I happen to think that our outstanding results are mainly due to our board's commitment to literacy across the curriculum.

I would like to invite you to take a look at our school improvement plan on our website. It will become obvious that CtK has a very intensive literacy strategy that involves literacy checklists, literacy IEPs, graphic novels, assessments with embedded literacy prompts, a Grade 9 and 10 English program that is modelled after the OSSLT, after school literacy preparation, literacy computer modules, mock literacy tests and so on. It is important to note that our data on student achievement drives the creation of our instructional and assessment strategies. As with anything that we do at CtK, it revolves around meeting the needs of our students to the best of our abilities.

We are blessed with an excellent teaching staff that embraces change and leads by example in many instances. Their dedication to our Catholic Learning Community has yielded excellent results in all of our data indicators including the OSSLT especially over the last three years.

I pray and hope that this contingent of students will be successful this Thursday. It is a stressful time for them.

I have had many discussions with my colleagues over the dedication that all of our schools have with respect to literacy and numeracy. Are we dedicated because it is the right thing to do? Is it the pressure that arises from the province comparing schools and boards that drives us?

Looking forward to hearing your opinion. Thanks for reading.