Girls are still outperforming boys in reading and writing in New Westminster, according to the district’s achievement contract.
Outgoing superintendent John Woudzia recently presented the district’s academic performance from last year to the board of education, outlining mostly positive performance results for students in the city compared to the province overall. However, it wasn’t all good news when it comes to district-wide comparisons between the genders.
“It’s pretty pronounced, the girls are outperforming the boys,” Woudzia told trustees.
“This is a trend we’ve seen over time,” board of education chair Jonina Campbell said.
Trustee MaryAnn Mortensen asked, “What are we doing, if anything, to address that?”
The district has a reading program called FastForWard that is used for both boys and girls, Woudzia said. The district has also increased the number of non-fiction books and visual texts in classrooms to appeal to boys, said Sandra Pace, the district’s director of instruction.
Pace also explained to trustees that the testing could also impact results, because often it is done on literature, which boys may not respond as strongly to as girls. Pace said she was going to present information on digital literacy as it relates to boys in the new year.
Trustee David Phelan said studies show that if you compare genders on a digital format, reading results between the genders are closer.
Other challenging areas for the district include math results, which are improving but are not yet at the level they could be on the foundation skills assessment (FSA) with respect to Grade 4, according to Woudzia. As well, the drop in achievement of students with special needs is “worrisome,” though on the FSAs, this drop was largely due to almost half of the special needs students not writing the assessments, Woudzia noted. Of those who wrote, two-thirds succeeded.
Provincial exam results at the pass level (C- and better) are strong, but the district would like to see more students achieve at higher levels (C+ and better), Woudzia explained.
But overall the district was pleased with student performance results, which continue to improve year over year.
“This is the highest results we’ve ever had,” Woudzia said. “This is an excellent report. This really speaks strongly to what we do – our core mandate.”
The success boils down to “great teaching, great instruction, great learning,” the superintendent said.
Growth was particularly strong for students between Grades 4 and 7. Grade 7 writing achievement was above provincial levels, and is at its highest level, with 95 per cent of students assessed meeting or exceeding expectations. Graduate rates were also strong, with 84 per cent of students receiving their diploma on time.
The district will continue using its SmartReading/SmartLearning program to guide its reading and writing work. One of the district's goals is to have 90 per cent or more students meeting or exceeding academic expectations. Of note as well, in math, some schools have moved to Jump Math program, but the results have not shown improvement as a result of this, but other aspects must also be considered, according to Woudzia.
To view the district's achievement contract, an annual report that they must send to the Ministry of Education, visit the district's website at district.sd40.bc.ca.
