The Laurentides school service center has decided to tackle the dropout… of its school staff. Several efforts have been made to retain its employees, which has an impact on student success, says its general director. Even the professionals are there.
This service center ranks third in the ranking presented today by The Journaleven if it welcomes several students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“What makes the biggest difference in student success is people,” says its general director, Sébastien Tardif, from the outset.
Since 2018, the number of students has increased by 13% while the number of positions providing direct support to students has increased by 48%. “We made sure we made the right choices,” he adds.
The service center has also increased its efforts to make these hires a reality and to retain existing staff, says Mr. Tardif.
Several measures have been introduced: professional integration and mentoring program, well-being committee, better recognition of employees as well as flexible and hybrid schedule arrangements for employment groups that allow it.
“It requires a certain amount of gymnastics, but the bet we made is that it is less complicated to adapt and accommodate people rather than having vacant positions to fill or a turnover rate high, explains Mr. Tardif. It was a winning approach, it brings stability to the teams.”
The retention rate among teaching staff is 96%, for all statuses combined (regular, contract or piece-rate), so that the proportion of teachers not legally qualified in this service center is only 2 %.
Professionals at the meeting
These measures also had an impact in the ranks of professionals, where “à la carte” positions were created as needed.
Result: there are currently only one and a half speech therapist positions currently vacant, out of around thirty professional positions, which represents a much lower proportion than in the entire public school network (12%).
“There is a whole ecosystem that revolves around the teacher to support him,” says Mr. Tardif.
Staff also work extensively collaboratively, through learning communities, after establishing common priorities, while promoting “good practices” recognized by research, such as explicit teaching, support for positive behavior and services educational “prevention”, lists the general director.
“We also prioritize support in literacy and numeracy, paying particular attention to the basics and transitions,” he adds. We try not to spread ourselves too thin.”
A school service center in Montérégie that is improving
A rigorous analysis of the content taught at the end of secondary school and personalized monitoring of students allowed the Hautes-Rivières school service center, in Montérégie, to experience the greatest improvement in this ranking.
Its “overall rating” is now 5.7, whereas it was 5.0 on average since 2019. This indicator, developed by the Fraser Institute, is based largely on the results of students in the ministerial examinations of fourth and fifth secondary.
The rigorous analysis of the content taught and the skills to be developed has made it possible, in recent years, to improve student results in these exams, mentions from the outset its general director, Marie-Claude Huberdeau.
The correction grids for ministerial tests, which reflect the skills to be developed, are analyzed to ensure that what is taught respects the program, she explains.
However, it is not a question of “teach to test”, since the emphasis is placed on the development of skills and not on the content of the exam, she specifies.
Throughout the year, teachers also ensure that they evaluate their students according to ministerial requirements in order to prevent results from being affected by the statistical moderation process carried out by the Ministry of Education, at the end of the year.
“We see, obviously, that it makes a big difference,” says Ms. Huberdeau.
In certain subjects, teachers also work with students grouped in small groups, according to their needs and difficulties, which has notably made it possible to improve results in mathematics, adds the general director.
Personalized monitoring is also done with students in each secondary school, which allows flags to be “raised” on occasion. “The principle is to have a significant adult who forms the link between the student and their family,” she explains.
“Creative” measures are also put in place to allow students with special needs to complete their fifth secondary education, even if they are in special education.
However, there remains a lot of work to be done so that more students obtain their secondary diploma, since the dropout rate is higher in this service center than the provincial average.
“It’s the priority of priorities,” says Marie-Claude Huberdeau.
