Public elementary school students can do better.
That from the Lambton Kent District School Board, after test results released Wednesday by the province's Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) reveal students in Grades 3 and 6 didn't meet the math standard.
This year, 56% of Grade 3 students throughout the LKDSB were at or above the provincial assessment standard, compared with 62% between 2013 and 2014.
For Grade 6 students, results were even lower, with that number coming in at only 38%, compared to 48% between 2013 and 2014.
"We followed provincial trends with math, and our scores decreased by around 5% in Grade 3 and 10% in Grade 6," says Taf Lounsbury, the superintendent of education for early years programming. "So we're very disappointed with those scores. We don't feel that they're reflective of the work that we've done together with our children in the schools."
On the other hand, Lounsbury says their high school students maintained solid results that are in line with the rest of Ontario.
She adds the board is really trying to track whether math scores are improving as students move through the system.
"It's important to remember that EQAO is one piece of data, and we also combine it with other student data like report cards and classroom assessments," says Lounsbury. "So our Grade 4 teachers are looking at Grade 3 results... and we're following all the students all the way through to [Grade] 6 and 9."
That's exactly how Lounsbury says they're going to turn the tide around next year -- by focusing on individual student performance.
"Instead of looking at an overall strategy...we're going to be looking at individual students and how they're doing in each strand," she says, "because some kids excel in some strands and not others."
RELATED: LKDSB Occasional And Supply Teacher Costs Over Budget