Although the Upper Canada District School Board’s (UCDSB) 2023-2024 graduation rates were an improvement from 2021 statistics, more work is still needed to meet the 90 per cent graduation rate proposed by the UCDSB through the 2024-2025 Director’s Work Plan.
The Ontario Ministry of Education released the results last week, and for the third consecutive year, the UCDSB graduation rates have increased. Of students who had begun Grade-9 in 2019-2020, 86.1 per cent of them graduated within four years, an overall increase of 4.2 points. As for students that started Grade-9 in 2018-2019, the rate grew to 89.2 per cent within five, an increase of 2.3 points.
“This increase in graduation rates is a reflection of the unwavering commitment to our students we see from our educators and from those who guide our system,” Director of Education Ron Ferguson stated.
While these numbers are certainly worth celebrating, they still fall under par in comparison to the graduation rate the UCDSB is striving for in the 2024-2025 school year. One of the priority areas of the UCDSB Director’s Work Plan for 2024-2025 is to ensure and maintain a 90 per cent graduation rate for high school students in the region.
“We will continue to strive towards reaching our 90 per cent goal, but I am proud of how far we have come,” Board Chair Jamie Schoular remarked.
Additionally, the UCDSB invested $500,000 in additional intensive reading resources for the 2023-2024 school year to help improve reading skills among students. Although results are not yet available to measure the potential impact on student reading abilities, earlier figures suggest that the investment was greatly needed.
When success rates of two local high schools were examined, including Glengarry District High School (GDHS) and Vankleek Hill Collegiate Institute (VCI), results of both Grade-9 mathematics and the standardized Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) demonstrated a need for continued improvement and investment by the UCDSB.
The Fraser Institute’s “Report Card on Ontario’s Secondary Schools 2023” demonstrates that 26.3 per cent of Ontario students’ tests fell below the standards set for the OSSLT and Grade-9 mathematics test. This included the GDHS percentage at 31.5 and VCI at 29.8, both over the province’s average.
The report further ranked GDHS at 6.0 out of a possible 10, down from the 7.2 the school earned back in 2019. VCI did not score much better, being ranked 5.8 out of 10, down from 7.8 in 2019. The average score given to Ontario high schools was 6.0 out of 10.
