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Catholic students slip in diploma exams The percentage of St. Albert Catholic students achieving the acceptable standard in last year's diploma exams dropped in seven of 11 subjects: Applied Math 79.5 per cent, down from 86.

Catholic students slip in diploma exams

The percentage of St. Albert Catholic students achieving the acceptable standard in last year's diploma exams dropped in seven of 11 subjects:

Applied Math 79.5 per cent, down from 86.3 the year before

Pure Math 81.5 from 83.2

English 30-1 87.2 from 92.5

French 93.3 from 97.4

Chemistry 73.8 from 89.1

Physics 83.3 from 88.7

Social 30 74.5 from 82.6

Achievement improved in English 30-2, with 94.5 per cent of students achieving the acceptable standard, up from 91.5 per cent. Three other subjects were even or saw a slight gain.

The results are a one-year snapshot and difficult to assess as a trend, said superintendent David Keohane.

However, a possible explanation is that the division encourages students to push themselves, leading to higher participation rates. The division's participation rate increased last year in social, language arts and applied math.

"We'll have to bore more into those subjects to see which schools, which classes and which teachers are assigned to make a meaningful difference in the years to come," Keohane said.

Chemistry and physics both had new curricula last year, resulting in a province-wide drop in students achieving the acceptable standard. Catholic division students dropped even further to 2.8 percentage points below the provincial average.

"We will wait to see what the trend results show us next year," Keohane said.

School enrolment down slightly

Enrolment is down slightly in St. Albert's main school systems this year, with a 0.6 per cent decrease in the Protestant system and 0.03 per cent in the Catholic system.

"Over time our trend has been declining enrolment so this is a good news story," said Steve Bayus, deputy superintendent of human resources for Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools.

Prior to this year, the Catholic division had experienced a 12.4 per cent decline over the previous six years.

The Protestant drop is equal to 37 students, putting district enrolment at 6,483 this year. The largest decrease was at Sir George Simpson junior high at 9.4 per cent, or 55 students. Bellerose Composite High School lost 61 students, a 6.4 per cent decrease. Meanwhile, E.S. Gish elementary/junior high had a 17.5 per cent increase.

On the Catholic side, the slight decrease represents only two students and puts division enrolment at 6,034. The largest decrease was at Richard S. Fowler junior high, with a 15.3 per cent decrease or 56 students. St. Albert Catholic High School boosted its ranks by 69 students, a 13 per cent increase. The school has 87 more Grade 10 students than it did last year.

Broken down geographically, the division's St. Albert schools were fairly steady, with a 0.24 per cent decrease. Morinville schools posted a 1.7 per cent increase while the Legal school had an 8.2 per cent decrease.

The school took a particularly hard hit to its kindergarten numbers, with enrolment dropping to eight students from 20 last year.

"Let's hope there a few more little guys out in Legal," said trustee Jacquie Hansen.

Catholic board posts surplus, dips into reserves

Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools posted a $50,000 surplus in the last school year after trustees voted to take $280,000 from reserves to pay for new multi-function buses and computer servers.

"This is a $60-million budget and our surplus is $50,000. That's less than one tenth of one per cent," noted board chair Dave Caron. "We have no wiggle room."

On Monday the board approved its current year budget which will be balanced while spending about $66 million, about $1 million more than initially projected.

One question that remains is whether teachers will get a pay increase of 5.99 or 4.82 per cent, an issue that arose over a dispute in the calculation of the Alberta Weekly Earnings Index. An arbitrator will decide that Jan. 23 and 24.

Secretary-treasurer Deb Schlag budgeted for the higher increase but assumed it would come with corresponding provincial funding. If not, it would be a $332,000 hit to the division.

The province has promised to fund the increase, if it happens, said trustee Jacquie Hansen.

"Our job will be to hold the government to that promise," she said.

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