December Newsletter Including Grad Rate Comments

My December newsletter is posted on our district website, and you can get straight to that newsletter by clicking here. You will see reference to our six-year completion rate, which refers to the percentage of students who receive a Dogwood certificate within six years of starting grad eight. My commentary in relation to these new data include the following:

1. The published completion rate for Saanich is down from 78% to 72%.
2. There is a more accurate "adjusted rate" that needs to be calculated. That number is being determined but we know it to be well over 80%. The adjusted rate comes from taking out 60 international students who were not here to graduate and who went home as expected. The adjusted rate also incorporates the large number of non-Saanich students who registered briefly at the South Island Distance Education School. By not registering again in their home districts they became ours only for the purpose of this statistic.
3. Notwithstanding the adjustment that puts us over 80%, we are dissatisfied with these results and will continue to enact plans to generate greater success for more students.
4. The most troubling statistic is our 21% First Nations completion rate. One upside is that we know every one of those non-completers and we are in contact with them and their families to support ongoing connection to school. Also, our strong partnership with the W'SANEC communities and our Board's productive relationship with the Saanich Indian School Board mean that there is great hope for improvement in our mutual support for the strategies outlined in the Education Enhancement Agreement signed last spring (posted on our district website).

I would be curious to know your thoughts on all of this.

Keven