GUELPH – Upper Grand District School Board (UGDSB) officials are reviewing the province’s de-streaming of Grade 9 math, but say it’s too soon to determine the impacts after just one semester.
In the fall, the Ministry of Education announced the Grade 9 math curriculum would be offered in a de-streamed format in Ontario schools as of September.
Prior to the start of the 2021-22 school year, Grade 9 students could enrol in academic, applied or locally developed math courses.
Now, only two are offered: de-streamed and locally developed.
Previously, Ontario was the only province that streamed students upon entry into Grade 9.
“We know research demonstrates that streaming students into courses can lead to underachievement, delayed graduation, more students dropping out of school,” UGDSB superintendent Pat Hamilton said in a May 3 program committee meeting.
“It can also negatively impact a student’s self-perception and certainly achievement.”
In a report to trustees, academic achievement data analyst Blayne Primeau noted there are currently 1,229 UGDSB students enrolled in Grade 9 de-streamed math and 116 enrolled in locally developed math.
“The average, or mean, grade in de-streamed math during the first semester was 73.3 per cent,” Primeau explained.
His report also noted de-streamed math saw a 94.1 per cent pass rate while 73 students (5.9%) did not achieve the credit.
“The importance around examining the enrolment of our locally developed courses is to monitor and guard against intended or unintended attempts to stream our Grade 9 students by enrolling them in locally developed courses instead of the de-streamed course,” Hamilton said.
Primeau explained 8.2% of students are currently enrolled in the locally developed course, down slightly from 9% in the 2018-19 school year.
“We are trending downward,” he said. “Therefore, students who would have traditionally been streamed into the applied course are taking the de-streamed course.
“This is an important first step in realizing equitable outcomes for all students.”
The board’s work going forward, director of education Peter Sovran explained, “will be to focus in on not supporting students after they have been unsuccessful in attaining a credit but in fact, intervene at a time so that the credit can be rescued.”
“Our goal obviously is to rescue those credits prior to the loss,” Hamilton added. “We’re not reacting but being proactive.”
“What stands out for us when we look at this analysis is there’s much more work still to be done,” Sovran said.
Trustee Linda Busuttil asked if the board has noticed whether de-streaming is making a difference in terms of student success and where they’re heading after Grade 9.
“What I see is that the student success rate has not really changed overall,” she said.
“I’m not getting a sense that de-streaming has made a difference for them.”
Sovran responded it’s still too early to determine the impact de-streaming is having on students, adding the board will be looking at results from semester two as well.
He said the board will be reviewing “the choices that are being made for the out years, not only in Grade 10 but then following all the students who were a part of this initial cohort of having Grade 9 de-streamed math knowing that next year as well there will be additional course offerings that are de-streamed in Grade 9,” he explained.
Echoing Sovran’s response, Hamilton added the board will be looking towards obtaining stronger data before determining what impact the de-streaming has had.
“It’s still a little bit in flux, but we’ve started to gather that data and I can preliminarily report that it certainly looks like there is an ever so slight increase in the number of students selecting Grade 10 academic math,” he said.
Trustee Barbara Lunstgarten Evoy reminded trustees that de-streaming is still new, and the numbers will be changing as the board learns more.
“I’m not hanging my head on any of these numbers yet, but we’ll be curious to see what happens in the years to come,” she said.
Hamilton responded, “it is early days and certainly we have lots of work to do and lots of data to collect.
“But it is exciting in that those opportunities are being made available, and that Grade 9 math credit is so important.”
