If Prince Rupert parents based where they should enrol their kids on the Fraser Institute’s annual report card, then they’d be discouraged to even live in this city.
With four of the elementary schools receiving a failing grade, from a 4.8 out of 10 at Lax Kxeen to a shocking 2.3 out of 10 at Pineridge — which was also ranked 922 out of 946 schools for the 2016-17 year — what options do parents have?
The Fraser Institute’s press release unabashedly praised independent elementary schools as the answer. Independent schools took 80 out of the top 102 spots in the annual ranking of B.C. elementary schools.
In Prince Rupert the only independent school, Annunciation School, received a 7.2 out of 10 and placed 215 overall in the province. But to go to Annunciation, a Catholic school, parents have to fill out a pre-application form, and they have to pay at least $2,820 in annual fees for a single child or $3,540 for two.
READ MORE: 13 per cent increase in Indigenous high school completion
Report cards are often read in the privacy of the family home, or between student and teacher, but here Prince Rupert’s public schools are publicly thrown under the bus.
School District 52 superintendent, Ken Minette, called the Institute’s report card a “misguided message”.
Ratings are mostly based on the Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) exams, not on other factors, such as the cultural programs. Students learn the local Indigenous language Sm’algyax starting in kindergarten. There are also opportunities in technology with coding and robotics, as well as learning the cycle of a salmon with actual juvenile salmon.
Lax Kw’alaams’s school was rated one of the worst in the province, but before last year students didn’t have the option to study in their own community.
But those nuances aren’t evaluated, and much like living in Prince Rupert, you have to live here to understand the abundance of cultural and nuanced opportunities.
shannon.lough@thenorthernview.com
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