School divisions release first post-pandemic PAT and diploma results
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After two years without state performance tests or diploma exams, the results for the first tests since the pandemic are available.
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Elk Island Public Schools and Elk Island Catholic Schools both found that most category results were down for the 2021-2022 school year.
“We certainly anticipated that our results would be down from where we are typically pre-COVID. This is the first time the students have written these tests since COVID,” said Trina Boymook, EIPS Board Chair. “We made an immediate investment when students returned to in-person learning in the fall of 2020. The board invested $500,000 from the reserve to address learning losses.”
Boymook said they have chosen to be proactive during the pandemic and have recently pledged an additional $1 million on top of what has been received in recent fiscal years targeting the learning achievement gap.
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“In our experience, all students from kindergarten through 12th grade have experienced some learning loss, and the board has invested to intervene in the middle,” Boymook said. “If we look back at the 2018-2019 results and look at the grade 6 and 9 PATs, we had 84.5 percent and in 2021 we were at 79.9 percent for an acceptable standard. In the area of excellence, we have increased from 26.7 percent to 24.4 percent.”
After breaking down the numbers, EIPS saw that Class 6 language arts PATs decreased by 87.8 percent in 2021-2022, compared to 94.6 percent at acceptable standards, and 25.5 percent achieving excellence in 2021-2022, compared to 26.4.
Looking at 9th grade language arts results, in the public school district, 85.6 percent achieved acceptable standards, and in 2021-2022 that number rose to 78.8 percent. That was a drop in the Standard of Excellence from 18 percent to 14 percent.
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In mathematics, EIPS Class 6 results showed that 82.9 percent achieved acceptable standards in 2021-2022, compared to 87 percent in 2018-2019. Boymook said 20.6 percent of students achieved the standard of excellence in 2021-2022, compared to 20.9 percent in 2018-2019.
In 9th grade math, students achieved 69.3 percent of acceptable standards in 2018-2019, but they dropped to 67.3 percent in 2021-2022. For the Standard of Excellence, it was 19.4 percent in 2018-2019, rising to 22.3 percent for 2021-2022.
“If we compare provincial then we’re certainly above provincial so I’m happy with that but it gives us an opportunity to finally get a sense of where we still need to be. Part of the province’s proficiency testing is used to inform school improvement planning, and this data will allow us to examine the results and see where are the areas where students are being more challenged and to refine how we do these Addressing aspects of the curriculum,” Boymook said.
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For overall diploma results, EIPS students achieved 85.5 percent acceptable standards in 2018-2019 and 79.6 percent in 2021-2022. For the Standard of Excellence, it was 22.3 percent in 2018-2019 and 17 percent in 2021-2022.
For the English Diploma 30-1, the results were 90.4 percent in 2018-2019 and 83.9 in 2021-2022. The Standard of Excellence rose from 13.1 percent to 6.4 percent.
English 30-2 rose from 24.3 percent to 81.3 percent in acceptable standards. From 14 percent to 10.4 percent.
Math 30-1 increased from 35.9 percent in 2018-2019 to 77.8 percent for 2021-2022. The Standard of Excellence rose from 30.3 percent to 28.5 percent.
Improvement of EICS tests
Looking at the Catholic school sector, EICS also notes a slight decline.
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“Overall, at EICS, we have maintained very high and high average scores in all of our diploma exams and provincial proficiency exams. When we look at our annual results, in most cases we were above or on par with the province,” said Trése de Champlain-Good, Assistant Superintendent for Educational Excellence at EICS. “We are very happy with the results of our students and I think that is a testament to the quality of the instruction our teachers have provided.”
deChamplain-Good said there’s a slight decline, but nothing that’s alarming.
EICS did not offer a full breakdown of the numbers, but said 70.9 per cent of students achieved acceptable standards on diploma exams for the 2021-2022 school year and 19.6 per cent of students achieved the standard of excellence. The department’s three-year average was 86.9 percent for acceptable standards and 22.6 percent for excellent standards.
At EICS Language Arts 30-1, 85.3 percent achieved an acceptable standard. For Math 30-1, 61.4 percent of EICS students achieve an acceptable level.
EICS Grade 9 PAT results showed that 70.9 percent of the students achieved the acceptable standard and 14.4 percent the standard of excellence.
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