Powell River Board of Education trustees were presented with School District 47’s academic achievement plan during a recent public meeting.
The plan communicates district priorities to the ministry of education.
It noted that while Powell River’s population has decreased by less than one per cent since 2001, the student population has been declining at a rate of about four per cent annually for the past 10 years. The district expects this trend to continue until at least 2015. The aboriginal ancestry portion of the district population has risen from 6.6 per cent in 2001 to 15.2 per cent in 2013.
Student enrolment was 2,075 as of June 30, 2014. It is expected to drop to about 1,850 by 2015.
The plan outlines four goals the district is working on including improving elementary student achievement in reading, writing and numeracy as well as increasing the district’s six-year school completion rate of all students.
According to the report the school district has shown encouraging improvement in the Dogwood completion rate from 2011-12 to 2012-13.
The completion rate for all students rose by six percentage points while first nations completion improved by 36 percentage points, bringing Powell River to just 3.5 per cent below the provincial average for all students and seven per cent above the provincial aboriginal student average.
