Good results on the Secondary School literacy tests have the St. Clair Catholic District School Board happy, but Director of Education Dan Parr says there is room to do better.
The board says 87% of students writing the test for the first time were successful, while of those who either were held back from writing or failed the previous year 70 % were successful.
"It means that the supports and the directed instruction that we provided enabled them to succeed and to demonstrate a good level of literacy skills that we all want our high school graduates to be able to demonstrate," says Parr.
Parr was also happy with the results for special needs students with a 66% success rate compared with a provincial average of 45%.
"That indicates what we've always known and what we believe and that is that virtually all students can succeed in basic literacy skills given sufficient time and given sufficient supports," he says.
The tests are normally written by Grade 10 students in the spring.
