Two thirds of Sault Ste. Marie’s elementary and secondary schools placed below the provincial average, with one school – H.M. Robbins Public School – ranking near the bottom in the Fraser Institute’s 2024 report cards.
Ranking schools across Ontario, the institute’s secondary school report card was released in January, following its elementary school report card published earlier in 2024.
The report cards ranked 746 secondary schools and 3,021 elementary schools across the province for the 2022/2023 academic year, based on results obtained through province-wide test results.
Schools are ranked out of 10 based on these indicators, and only nine of Sault Ste. Marie’s 27 schools ranked higher than the provincial average score of six.
All four local secondary schools came out below the provincial average, with Korah Collegiate & Vocational School coming out on top in this year’s report card with a 5.3 score, good for 506th place among Ontario secondary schools.
St. Mary’s College placed second locally, and 570th provincially, with a 5.1 score – dropping from a score of six in 2022.
Superior Heights Collegiate & Vocational School scored 4.8, ranking 570th, and has consistently ranked below provincial averages in each of the Fraser Institute’s past five report cards.
Similarly, White Pines Collegiate & Vocational School has consistently ranked below the provincial average, and attained a 3.6 score – for 680th place – in the 2024 report card.
Among elementary schools, Anna McCrea Public School topped the charts locally, scoring 7.9 and placing 387th provincially, just outside the top 10 per cent.
The school has consistently ranked above provincial averages in the report cards – barring one off year in 2018 when it scored 4.5.
An additional eight local elementary schools performed above the provincial average, but – on the other end of the spectrum – H. M. Robbins Public School scored a 1.1/10 for 2,990th overall.
The rest of the local elementary school rankings are as follows:
- St. Mary’s Catholic Elementary School – 7/10, 888th
- St. Francis French Immersion Catholic School – 6.9/10, 963rd
- R.M. Moore Public School – 6.7/10, 1,101st
- Tarentorus Public School – 6.6/10, 1,165th
- Grand View Public School – 6.5/10, 1,231
- Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School – 6.5/10, tied for 1,231
- Holy Family Catholic School – 6.3/10, 1,366
- St. Paul Catholic School – 6.1/10, 1,525
- Queen Elizabeth Public School – 5.6/10, 1,868
- Holy Cross Catholic Elementary School – 5.2/10, 2,081
- Isabel Fletcher Public School – 5.1/10, 2,146
- Greenwood Public School – 4.2/10, 2,505
- Pinewood Public School – 4/10, 2,564
- River View Public School – 3.9/10, 2,601
- Ben R. McMullin Public School – 3.8/10, 2,642
- Ecole Notre Dame du Sault – 3.3/10, 2,768
- Parkland Public School – 3.1/10, 2,807
- St. Basil Catholic Elementary School – 2.6/10, 2,895
- East View Public School – 2.4/10, 2,916
- Kiwedin Public School – 2/10, 2,943
- Northern Heights Public School – 1.7/10, 2,962
Algoma District School Board officials said the Fraser Institute's rankings help identify learning gaps, but do not guide its work.
“While the Fraser Institute rankings are based on standardized, EQAO test scores, their rankings do not inform our work. While we use the data as described above, our continuous improvement focus is on both achievement and well-being," said the board's director of education, Lucia Reece.
"Results at any school can vary year to year – as they should – given a new set of students are being tested. A holistic picture of a school’s quality combines both academics and well-being, as well as extra-curricular opportunities, culture, and community engagement, whereas the Fraser Institute focuses on one measure.
"As such, we caution against using these rankings as the sole measure of a school’s effectiveness.”
SooToday contacted the Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board for a quote but no one was available to provide one.
The report's overall rating out of 10 is intended to answer the question, “In general, how is the school doing, academically compared with others in the report card?”
The institute assigns each school a score based on their overall academic performance.
Fraser Institute notes the report card includes other indicators that provide supplementary information about the school’s effectiveness despite not accounting for each school’s overall rating out of 10.
These include students in English as a second language, English language learner programs or who have certain identified special needs, as well as indicators for students who have not written their EQAO tests.
A note to individuals using the recent report card as a measuring stick to each school’s success, the institute also states that readers should consult the complete table of results for each school of interest by considering several years of results as opposed to a school's most recent rank.
The full report for 2024 can be found online at compareschoolrankings.org/.
Note: The Fraser Institute report does not include Boréal French Immersion, F.H. Clergue French Immersion or École publique Écho-des-Rapides.
-- With files from Luke Mandato