Priority schools getting extra help

A new Hamilton public school board action plan is providing extra resources and oversight at 20 elementary schools identified as a “high priority” because of learning challenges that result in low student achievement.

Peter Sovran, associate director of learning services, said the schools were chosen from 29 schools previously considered to have high or moderate needs based on a variety of factors.

These include low household income, recent immigration rates, student struggles to read by the end of Grade 1, poor scores on provincial tests and “vulnerabilities” in areas like cognitive and language ability, social competence, health and well-being.

Eighteen of the schools are in wards 2, 3, 4 and 5 in the lower city, with the other two — Pauline Johnson and Westwood — on the Mountain.

Sovran said the action plan starts at the top, assigning at least three high-priority schools to every school superintendent and choosing principals and vice-principals “considered to be the best fit in terms of leadership.”

Superintendents are visiting the schools every two weeks to get a better understanding of their challenges, he told trustees in a presentation on the plan, which they requested in April.

“This first year is really about learning,” Sovran said, noting the board has provided extra resources and reduced class sizes at highneeds schools in the past, but not seen the desired achievement results.

“We want to much better understand what else can we do before we take the very precious resources that we do have and simply try different things,” he said. “Are there other social determinants that affect the students that attend highpriority schools, the way you teach in a high-priority school?”

Sovran said the schools are getting extra resources this year, including reading specialists, learning resource teachers, an early childhood educator in every kindergarten class, public health nurses and administrative support.

The latter can provide a halftime vice-principal in smaller schools that normally wouldn’t qualify for one and additional office staff to allow principals to devote more time to instructional leadership, he said.

The latest Student Learning and Achievement Report shows highpriority schools as a group score up to 17 percentage points lower on provincial reading, writing and math tests than the overall board average.