With the Rocky View Schools (RVS) division servicing 43 schools and almost 20,000 students, the 2013-2014 school year is being put in the win column as the RVS states “another year of success and accomplishments”.
For the 2013-2014 school year, Alberta Education’s pillar revealed “excellent standing” in the areas of high school completion, drop-out rate, and access to program of studies. The jurisdiction also maintained its ratings of good on safe and caring, education quality, acceptable and excellence standards on diploma exams, Rutherford scholarships, transition rate, citizenship and school improvement. Rocky View Schools is incredibly proud of these results, as they point to their success in providing supports to students across the jurisdiction. An area of improvement lies in our students’ achievement on provincial achievement tests, which will be addressed through the formation of a literacy and numeracy task group in 2014-2015.
Student diploma exam marks were very impressive as 5 out of 11 diploma exams at the acceptable level (85%) and in 7 out of 11 exams at the excellence level (15%). Outstanding performance was witnessed in Social 30-2, Math 30-1, Biology 30, Chemistry 30, Physics 30 and Science 30, where Rocky View students exceeded provincial expectations at the excellence level by greater than 5 to 10 percent. RVS continues to maintain one of the highest high school completion rates and lowest drop-out rates in the province.
Parent satisfaction results remain strong with 90% of those completed surveys stated they felt welcomed at the school, having opportunities for involvement, ensuring the school offers a safe and caring environment, building respectful relationships, maintaining fair treatment of students, helping students to become good citizens who are environmentally conscious, enhancing learning through the use of technology, employing authentic learning experiences, and ensuring students feel safe on the bus.
RVS Trustee, Bev LaPeare, said, “Anytime we get these reports it’s a great opportunity to celebrate the good things that have happened with our students and also embrace the opportunity to find ways to be even better. Our dropout rates are much lower than that of the provincial average and that means kids are engaged in their learning. The number of Rutherford scholarships given out for our students and diploma results are equally as impressive. As a school division, we want to ensure that literacy and numeracy skill sets are strong and focus will be put on those areas. As the province rolls out the new Student Learning Assessments that will replace the Provincial Achievement Tests, we should be able to get an even better idea of where students are experiencing success and where they have areas of growth. These tests will be done at the beginning of the year so that teachers can work on those areas throughout the school year.”
The RVS website states that their four main goals moving forward are : Learners have their individual needs met; Learners are self-directed, innovative, ecologically intelligent and entrepreneurial; Instructional design challenges and engages the learner and Learning environments enable the acquisition of 21st century competencies.
You can read this report in its entirety by visiting rockyview.ab.ca/publications
