Citadel High School 2014-15 Community Report
Provincial Assessments
In the 2014-2015 school year, Nova Scotia Examinations (NSE’s) for grade 10 English, English
Communications, Mathematics and Mathematics at Work were administered to all students enrolled in
these courses. This was the second year for the administration of these exams.
In 2014-15, Citadel High was began Year One in the Continuous School Improvement process.
This year we developed the following goals that will guide our work in the next few years:
Goal 1: Cultural Proficiency
To improve the cultural proficiency of staff as measured by administrative
walkthrough observations, teacher professional growth plans, teacher
surveys, student surveys, student focus group conversations and
Professional Learning Community conversations
This new school year brought about the opportunity to align our school based goals with the HRSB
initiative of looking to close the achievement gap. This goal is specifically linked to building stronger
relationships with our African Nova Scotian students. In order for this to occur, our school believes that
each teacher must become more culturally proficient in our classrooms, which affects all of the
students in our building. School based PD around this area is an ongoing thing as well as discussion
around getting to know our students better school wide rather than just class wide.
This move toward cultural proficiency started with professional development in the fall and carried
through into the new year with the creation of a Blog that teachers can access during their scheduled
PLC time or teachers of any subject can access any time during the year. This was meant to stimulate
school and student based conversation by introducing issues pertinent to our building. The issues
include formative assessment information, student-teacher relationship building information, and
cultural information (video and readings) that can aid us on our journey to a culturally proficient
school.
All teachers had the goal of cultural proficiency built into their Professional Growth Plans. This allows
Citadel as a school to move forward by building cultural components into our PD staff wide over the
course of our school year. As we move forward we will include students in the process of articulating
their needs from a cultural perspective to be more successful as students and to feel more included in
class, school and subject. This process is an ongoing exciting opportunity to embrace all of the
students and their communities that make their way to Citadel.
Clearly this is an exciting and ongoing process that over time will allow Citadel to serve all students
from both a strong academic and cultural perspective.
Goal 2:
Teachers will implement formative assessment strategies, as
measured by administrative walkthroughs (administrative walk
through blog), teacher professional growth plans, PLC notes (blog)
teacher surveys, student surveys and student focus groups.
Our second goal involves a merging of our continual and deeper understanding of goal number one to a
strong understanding of formative assessment as an important tool to form strong(er) relationships with
students as formative assessment is an essential component of teaching and learning. As a school we
will continue to in-service, share and support each other as teachers in this area with a collective thrust
of admin feedback, Professional Learning Communities and PD throughout the year.
This is a very exciting challenge and opportunity to engage a portion of our school community that can
at times be disengaged. This on-going component is an essential part of our school based beliefs that
will help create an even more conducive environment for all of our students. We believe by knowing our
students, their families and their communities it will give us all better insight into how to best serve
them daily in and out of the classroom (hallways). With regular feedback from the students themselves,
Dept. Heads and Admin, we can continue to support students and each other in our building.
Graduation Rates & Destinations after High School
Graduation Rates
School Year
2014-2015
Destination after High School
Community College
University
Other Education or Training
Join Work Force
Unknown
Rate
96%
Rate
7%
63%
--3%
20%
Citadel High School continues to score respectively in regards to provincial assessments. Our scores indicate that
our students are prepared as we consistently scored well above the provincial average. The scores indicated do
suggest that students are well rounded in the area of literacy and math assessments.
A 93% graduation rate, suggests our strengths at Citadel lie in our teachers and the support structures that work to
aid students each and every day over their three year journey. Differentiated instruction, strong resource teams,
African Nova Scotian and Aboriginal support teams as well as a Youth Health Centre, YMCA worker for new
immigrants, EAL support and International student support all round out a strong community based school with
built in mechanisms .
A 20% unknown piece as part of the data, suggests that within those strengths are areas where we need to improve
to close gaps: One gap is the historical achievement gap which has been a part of the ANS and Aboriginal
experience. Another is the gap between the reality and the fantasy of leaving high school and into the greater
society. This one important component is something that we continue to work on at Citadel so that students can
see a direct line towards their goals in life and how to use school as a tool to get there.
A Community College rate of just 7%, shows that we at Citadel must continue to support additional routes to
success for students. With viable options, such as the O2 program and Co-op courses offered at Citadel, students
now see NSCC (for example) as an excellent opportunity for success.