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10 Milton Canadian Champion Parade of Lights November 9-10 Parade starts at 6 p.m. Santa Claus is Coming to Country Heritage Park! Join us at our annual Parade of Lights And experience a fun-filled night watching a parade of brightly lit floats followed by Santa on his festive wagon. After the parade, join Santa in the Gambrel Barn to telt him what you Lil for Christmas! Ri V4 Es COUNTRY HERITAGE PARK # "ut NWW. { PO. Box 38 Road Milton, Ontario L9T 2Y3 el: 905-878-8151 « Email: info@countryheritagepark.com 8560 Tremaine JB NEWS CATHOLIC SCHOOL BOARD FACES SAGGING TEST SCORES ROLAND CILLIERS rcilliers@metroland.com Depending on how you look at it, the Catholic school board either needs improvement or is exem- plary. The 2018-2019 EQAO and OSSLT results of the Halton Catholic District School Board were pre- sented to trustees on Oct. 15 who had a mixed re- sponse. The provincewide tests measure Grade 3, Grade 6 and Grade 9 stu- dents in reading, writing and mathemadtics skills, against the Ontario cur- riculum. The board saw worse student results in a num- ber of categories, but it still consistently per- formed above the provin- cial average. Board staff said it's im- portant to look at the re- sults as merely a snapshot, and it's more valuable to look at the numbers for a single group of students over time as they take the tests at the different grade levels. Trustee Vincent Ianto- masi wanted to know what was being done to reverse the trend. "Our downward spiral has started for the last four years, into 2019. So, if you're referring to a snap- shot, then that snapshot Roland Cilliers /Torstar Halton Catholic District School Board trustee Vincent lantomasi wants to know what the board is doing to improve the standardized test scores. holds true for the last four years. I guess, really, what I'm asking is, "What do we have in place to ameliorate the scores we're getting?" said Iantomasi - The board laid out a number of planned and ongoing initiatives that they argue will support student success into the future. Initiatives include a fo- cus on guided literacy, an early-years numeracy pro- ject and new student-cen- tred coaching. Anna Prkacin, superin- tendent of education, cur- riculum services, said re- cent education cuts may make supporting teachers and students more diffi- cult. "Fundamentally, we look at almost all the bud- get and funding for the curriculum department to be less than what it has been and up to half what it has been in previous years. So, definitely a chal- lenge, but we want to be positive and ensure that we're giving teachers and students the support they need, to the best of our abilities," said Prkacin. For a complete break- down of the board's results for the 2018-2019 EQAO and OSSLT including how indi- vidual schools performed, visit https://eqao- web.eqao.com/eqaowe- borgprofile/pro- file.aspx? Mi- dent=25&Lang=E gi EDWARDS p TOY Cd LA LLL Ye Bh RA (uC earth' THIS LE RTT CTA CE y £8 6 RU CL LLL HLT I iiFon November 9'@ 7:30 pm - Milton FirstOntario Arts Centre: 905 878 6000