If your school has experienced any of these changes since last year, you should exercise caution when comparing indicators over time. In fact some indicators may not be able to be used at all at your school. For example, the retention indicator showing the number of grade 10 students two years ago compared to the number of actual graduates for the current year would probably not be accurate at all for a school that has experienced changes in zoning. Likewise, if your school amalgamated with another or incorporated students from many different schools, test scores cannot be averaged to produce a composite score. It can be argued that even if you weight each score by the number of students and then average, the school as it exists today does not accurately represent the previous schools.

In such situations it is far better to treat your school as a new school. Obviously you will have fewer indicators and your school report will not be as long, but it will be far more accurate and representative of the current school. (Note: The optimal number of pages for a school report is 8-12 pages). You may not have a new test result or a new retention rate for the school as it exists today, but in many cases you can write about the indicator. For example, if two schools have amalgamated and the reading scores for one were good while for the other were poor, then you could comment on the reading scores by saying something like "overall the school has performed well in reading, though there are areas that need some work". Then, and most importantly, list any initiatives that are being implemented to address the situation. In addition, you should not show past results separately for these two schools. It is an inaccurate comparison to show results of two separate schools, compare them to the new school and deduce conclusions. In the absence of external performance indicators, discussion pertaining to student achievement should still be included. This discussion could be incorporated under areas of the curriculum. This would encompass topics such as implementation of new curriculum, strategies implemented to improve curriculum areas, observations regarding strengths and needs related to curriculum outcomes and any future planning for improvement.

In summary, if there are any historical results that you feel do not represent your current school do not hesitate to disregard them. By treating your school as a new school you are telling parents and other stakeholders that this is the base year for this school and we will measure our efforts and our performance from this point onward.

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