High School Completion: Strong schools and strong communities go hand in hand

It’s no secret that school closures and community schools have dominated this election. The media and campaign literature – mine included – have devoted a lot of energy to these important issues. But I have been door-knocking and attending community events since May, and I can tell you that these are not the only concerns out there.

Since May, I have spoken with thousands of parents, educators, and community members, and the high school completion rate is on everyone’s mind. According to Alberta Education, in the 2008-09 school year, a shocking 32.9% (almost one-third!) of students did not graduate from high school within three years of starting grade ten, 4.4% worse than the provincial average. Edmonton Public Schools’ completion rate needs to be improved. There are very few things in this world with worse consequences for our youth, our communities, and our society.

Earlier this year, the Alberta School Boards Association published a report called Improving High School Completion (you can download it by clicking here). The report surveyed school boards across the province for insight into the causes of low completion and practices that have improved completion rates.

School boards identified five main factors:

• lack of support at home,
• personal factors (attendance problems, negative peer-pressure, etc),
• academic difficulties,
• feelings of disconnection from school peers and teaching staff, and
• socio-economic factors.

School boards also identified five best practices:

• variety, choice, and flexibility in educational programs,
• reducing and supporting student transitions between and within schools,
• individualized attention for at-risk students,
• building relationships between students, their peers, and teaching staff, and
• effective teaching practices.

These are very sound observations and practical courses of action. As a trustee, I would continue policies that monitor at-risk students and implement these kinds of best practices.

Still, there’s something missing from the conversation about high school completion, and it’s something I want to bring to the school board: the community.

There’s a saying: “It takes a village to educate a child”, and nowhere is this wisdom more relevant than high school completion. Children should not feel like they are leaving their communities when they pass through the threshold of their school – the halls, classrooms, and gymnasiums should buzz with the same life and vitality children experience in their neighbourhoods. Trustees have to work with City Hall and the Legislature to promote community programs and services that contribute to positive student experiences.

One  example of this is the recent attempts by City Hall to close the Scona Pool, an issue on which I was very vocal (you can read about my involvement here). A student commented “Two years ago I didn’t like school at all, and did everything I could to avoid it,” but thanks to Scona Pool, the things this student loves about their community are now waiting for them at school every day.

And just as low community presence in the schools lowers completion rates, high community presence increases them. The secret to lighting a student’s passion for learning lies in making their education relevant to their social context. By this, I don’t mean relating education to youth culture – I’m talking about relating education to realities of life in the student’s community. The communities of Ward F are diverse. School administrators and government bureaucrats won’t have the same intimate knowledge of this diversity as the members of these communities themselves. Even teachers may not fully understand these social contexts when they drive to work from the other side of the city and come from entirely different socio-economic-age demographics.

This is yet another reason why the challenges facing Edmonton Public Schools cannot be discussed without considering the communities of our city. The absence of community in public education fuels low completion rates, while the presence of community builds better outcomes for every learner. Strong schools and strong communities go hand in hand!