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Full many a rose is born to blush unseen
There's a continuing good news story going on in an obscure school board in western Ontario, the Huron-Perth Catholic District School Board. Here's a local news story on the results of the latest Grade 10 literacy test. Once again, the board's students score among the best in the province. And here's an article from our newsletter archives showing that the board started rocketing to the top not quite ten years ago. The school board's success has been recognized by parents: its schools are packed to the rafters (non-Catholics can enroll in their schools) and none of its schools have been closed.
There is nothing remarkable about the Huron-Perth catchment area - no special demographic factors or brain transplants going on. Indeed, the contiguous public school board, the Avon-Maitland District School Board, typically scores around the provincial average. So what's going on here?
I know just a few things about the Huron-Perth Board: they didn't move to the Balanced School Day like other school boards; they still offer JK-8 under one roof; and they teach beginning readers using systematic phonics. Are these factors in the school board's astonishing success? Who knows. But somebody should be asking these questions.
This board also fought the move to amalgamate, being one of the few that stayed small and kept its sense of community in that way.
They also haven’t closed their schools much at all. One, i the past many years AND they did it without the new accommodation review model, AND, the closure was cordial and well-accepted. How often do you hear that?