Minister of education, Karen Casey, left, presents principal Steven Walker, SAC chair Lynn Roscoe, BRHS’s student council president, and vice-principal Julie Mann with school-accreditation.
Carolyn Sloan
BRHS distinguished for high standards
Minister awards school with accreditation
By Carolyn Sloan
The Spectator
NovaNewsNow.com
When it comes to high standards, increased student achievement, and improving the school’s overall performance, Bridgetown Regional High School is full steam ahead.
The school was honoured at a ceremony on March 28 as the first school in the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board to be awarded accreditation through the Nova Scotia School Accreditation Program.
“When I look around, I see that there have been lots of successes at this school,” said education minister Karen Casey at Friday’s ceremony. “I want to congratulate the staff, students and school advisory council members who put so much effort into a school-improvement strategy that is clearly increasing student achievement.”
In 2002, Bridgetown high school was one of eight schools provincewide to be selected to pilot the accreditation program, which is a school-improvement process aimed at enhancing the learning environment for students and staff. The program was designed to ensure that schools in the province are continually improving to meet the academic needs of all students.
When assessed by an external review team, BRHS demonstrated that it had met its goal of significantly increasing the number of students with a final mark of 60 per cent or more in 13 of 16 courses. Achievement in Grade 8 math, for example, increased from 67 per cent achieving 60 per cent or more, to 84 per cent in the years 2002-2003 and 2005-2006.
In addition to raising academic achievement, the school also made it a priority to create a safer learning environment for students, reducing bullying, acts of violence and vandalism by 20 per cent. In addition, defiant behaviour toward teachers has been reduced by 70 per cent, and disruptive classroom behaviour has been decreased by 80 per cent.
“The Bridgetown school community was a pioneer in the process,” said AVRSB superintendent Norman Dray at the ceremony, “and they deserve credit for the foresight and courage it took to be an early adopter.”
To participate in the program, BRHS established an internal review team to collect and evaluate data with regards to the strengths of the school and the areas where there needed to be improvement. Based on this information, the high school developed goals, as well as a five-year improvement plan. There are currently 229 schools in the province working on school-accreditation plans.
