Buckingham top public elementary in Fraser Institute rankings
Buckingham is the top public Burnaby elementary school in the Fraser Institute's latest rankings, coming in 104th place out of 853 schools overall.
The top six Burnaby elementary schools in the rankings are all independents, starting with Our Lady of Mercy which was ranked 13th overall with a score of 9.9 out of 10. There was a three-way tie for 13th.
The rankings of B.C. schools were compiled using the provincial Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) exams, testing reading, writing and numeracy, written by students in grades 4 and 7 in the 2011-2012 school year. With rankings based on a 10-point scale, there were numerous ties.
In the Burnaby rankings, Our Lady of Mercy was followed by John Knox Christian and Holy Cross tied for 16th place overall (9.8 points) along with six other schools, St. Michaels in a two-way tie for 31st place (9.5), St. Francis de Sales in 33rd (9.4) along with five other schools, and St. Helen's among five tied for 50th (8.9).
Buckingham repeated as top public elementary but dropped in the overall rankings as it came in 81st place last year with a score of 8.4 compared to 8.0 this year. It was among 13 schools which tied for the 104th spot.
It was followed in the Burnaby rankings by public schools Cameron, Clinton, Montecito and Seaforth which were among 15 schools provincewide tied for 118th spot overall (7.9 points).
The lowest ranking Burnaby school was Morley elementary which came in 784th place with a score of 3.4. That's down from last year when it scored 4.2 and, while it was still the lowest-scoring in Burnaby, it placed 720th overall.
Of the 45 Grade 4 students enrolled at Morley in 2011-2012, the report shows, 52.4 per cent were English-as-a-second-language, 6.8 per cent had special needs and the average parental income was $30,000, the lowest listed among Burnaby schools.
Also at Morley, 31.6 per cent of the tests were not written for one reason or another and of the tests that were written, 30.6 per cent did not meet provincial expectations.
Stride Avenue elementary came in second-last place in Burnaby, at 663 overall with a score of 4.6, ESL at 52.4 per cent, special needs at 7.3 per cent and average parental income of $39,700.
In third-last was Second Street in 647th place, a score of 4.7, ESL of 30.6 per cent, special needs of 7.4 per cent and parental income of $53,800.
None of the independent schools in Burnaby are listed as having any ESL or special needs students.
Meanwhile, among Burnaby public schools ranked, the one with the highest level of ESL was Chaffey-Burke at 54.7 per cent (ranked 303rd), the highest level of special needs was at Stoney Creek at 11.1 per cent (363rd) and the highest parental income was at Gilpin with $90,100 (193rd).
Burnaby public schools not included in the rankings were Edmonds, Maywood, Glenwood, Lyndhurst, Rosser, Suncrest and University Highlands. The report excludes those schools which had fewer than 15 students enrolled in grades 4 or 7 in 2011-2012 and those which "did not generate a sufficiently large set of student data to enable the calculation" of an overall rating.
Provincewide 12 schools tied for first place overall with 10 points, and were all independents with the exception of West Bay elementary in West Vancouver. At the other end of the scale, William Konkin elementary, a public school in Burns Lake came in last place with a score of 0.2.
See the full report at www.compareschoolrankings.org.
wchow@burnabynewsleader.com
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