Graduation rates for students in the Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows School district has increased once again.
For the 2022/23 school year, 98.1 per cent competed high school in SD42, above the provincial range of 83 to 94 per cent.
Since the 2015/16 school year, the graduation rate has increased every year except the 2018/19 year which had a slight decline before rising again.
In 2015/16, the graduation rate was 88.1 per cent, the following year it rose to 89.5 per cent, in 2017/18 it was 92.7 before falling the next year to 92.3 per cent – and it has been slowly rising each school year since.
The graduation rate for students with Indigenous ancestry is also above the provincial average. The 2022/23 school year saw 90.3 per cent graduate – the highest in eight years. The average range across the province is only 68 to 85 per cent.
This group of students was only at a completion rate of 69.9 per cent eight years ago. The graduation rate jumped to 83.5 per cent in the 2016/17 school year. In 2021/22 the rate jumped from 84.1 per cent the previous year to 90 per cent.
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The six year completion rate is the percentage of students who graduated and received a Certificate of Graduation or Adult Graduation Diploma within six years from the first time they enrolled in Grade 8.
For students with diverse needs the grad rate also rose to a record high in the past eight years. In 2015/16, the grad rate was only 66.8 per cent. The rate steadily rose and the 2022/23 school year this rate hit 91.4 per cent, well above the provincial average of 67 to 81 per cent.
School board chair Elaine Yamamoto noted how proud the board is of the high graduation rates and at the future aspirations expressed by students at graduation ceremonies every year.
“A tremendous amount of commitment and effort is invested into providing diverse options to keep students engaged in learning,” said Yamamoto.
“We support many programs in the district that help students find their place and discover and develop their own individual strengths. Such programs include early and late French immersion, Montessori, Odyssey, Outreach, trades and academies, Wheelhouse, as well as International Baccalaureate (IB). Our vision, as formally expressed in our strategic plan, is for every individual to feel valued and for all learners to reach their potential,” added the school board chair.
These rates place SD42 as one of the top districts in the province with a graduating class of more than 1,000 students last year.