Private schools again top academic rankings

Aberdeen Hall 1st in Central Okanagan as Fraser Institute releases annual rankings of elementary schools in B.C.

Private and independent schools dominated local public schools in the latest Fraser Institute academic rankings.

The think-tank’s annual elementary school rankings, released Thursday, are based on the B.C. Foundation Skills Assessment of Grades 4 and 7 students in reading, writing and numeracy.

Aberdeen Hall was the topranked elementary school in the Central Okanagan and ranked 55th of 955 elementary schools in the province.

Aberdeen Hall was also the top school in the district in 2016 and 2017, but last year it fell behind West Kelowna’s Our Lady of Lourdes, an independent Catholic school.

On this year’s list, Our Lady of Lourdes is ranked as the secondbest elementary school in the region and 59th in the province, followed by Kelowna Christian (114), and Heritage Christian and St. Joseph, which tied at 170th.

The top-rated public elementary school in the Central Okanagan is Kelowna’s Anne McClymont at 285th, followed by Mar Jok in West Kelowna at 311.

The lowest-ranked school in the Central Okanagan was South Rutland at 853rd.

The Fraser Institute’s annual school ranking has limited value, said Central Okanagan school district superintendent Kevin Kaardal.

“Parents are far better to speak to schools about the progress of their children,” he said. “The comparative nature of the report on such narrow measures doesn’t reflect what’s going on in schools.”

Although district staff do not look at the Fraser Institute rankings, they do look at the FSA results provided by the ministry, said Kaardal.

“We work always to ensure that every student is learning to their best potential,” he said. “In the end, by international measures . . . we are one of the highest-performing districts in British Columbia, and certainly one of the highest in Canada.”

Angela MacLeod, senior policy analyst with the Fraser Institute, said she agrees the rankings do not necessarily give a full picture of everything schools are doing, but said it is the best they can do with the information they have.

“This is the only annual comparable objective measure that we have to look at schools, and we certainly understand there’s other things schools are doing in terms of athletic programs and arts programs,” she said. “If there were other objective measures available, we would absolutely look at those as well.”

The main purpose of publishing the results is to give parents and policy-makers the opportunity to see how their schools are performing academically compared to other schools in the province, said MacLeod.