School rankings all over the map

The rankings are all over the map for public and Catholic schools in the Woolwich and Wellesley in the latest Report Card on Ontario’s Elementary Schools, released this week by the Fraser Institute.

The corporate-centric think tank has been ranking the province’s elementary schools for 15 years. For 2016-17, the organization looked at more than 3,000 schools based on nine academic indicators from results of annual province-wide reading, writing and math tests.

The average ranking for Ontario schools is a 6 out of 10, with some in the townships shooting well past that mark and others falling well short.

For Waterloo Region District School Board schools in the townships, St. Jacobs PS earned the highest marks, with a score of 8.0 (307th out of 3,064 schools). It was followed by Conestogo PS and Floradale PS at 7.1 (tied for 852nd), Wellesley PS at 6.7 (1,126), Breslau PS at 5.6 (1,887), Riverside PS at 4.9 (2,280), John Mahood PS at 4.0 (2,652) and Linwood PS at 3.9 (2,692).

The highest ranked WRDSB school was Laurelood PS in Waterloo at 9.2 (52nd).

At the Waterloo Catholic District School Board, St. Clement earned a grade of 7.0 (912), St. Teresa of Avila in Elmira a 6.7 (1,126) and St. Boniface in Maryhill a 4.9 (2,280).

WCDSB’s highest performer was Holy Rosary in Waterloo, given an 8.3.