A+ for Neil McNeil

[attach]5768[/attach]Neil McNeil High School is one of the top schools in the province according to a recent Frasier Institute report card.

The all-boys Catholic school was ranked 13th in the provincewide study, up from 26 in 2009–2010, with North Toronto Collegiate Institute being the only other to score higher in the city.

“We were pleased,” said principal Michael Wallace. “It speaks volumes about the dedication of the teaching staff and how hard they work with the kids to get them to achieve success.”

Wallace said he asks a lot from his students and they are able to meet the challenge.

“I think that when you place greater expectations on kids for their behaviour and their performance at school … they rise up to the occasion,” he said. “Therefore, you see the results in many different facets of things that are examined in the Fraser report.”

The Fraser Institute has been ranking Ontario high schools since 2007 using the results of standardized tests administered across the province by the Education Quality and Accountability Office.

Wallace said a focus on the standardized tests might account for his school’s improvement in the rankings over the past five years.

“We place an emphasis on EQAO here,” he said. “It’s not something we ignore. We take it very seriously.

“The test itself is curriculum based and it gives us some feedback as to how we’re doing as a staff.”

Davenport MP Andrew Cash, an alumnus of the school, said it’s the staff that sets Neil McNeil apart.

“The teachers who were there were there because teaching was a vocation to them,” he said. “It wasn’t just a job. These teachers really cared about who we were, what we were doing and where we were going.”

Cash said Neil McNeil was not only where he started to become politically engaged but also where he started performing with his band.

“One of the first music gigs I ever did was there with my band,” he said. “That was a night I’ll never forget. We were roundly booed actually as I recall.”

In addition to politicians, the school has graduated musicians, actors and nearly a dozen students who went on to become NHL players.

“Everybody likes to talk about the three R’s but I like to talk about the three A’s,” Wallace said. “That’s academics, arts and athletics.”

According to Wallace, it’s that unique approach to learning that makes his school successful.

“Sometimes we approach things slightly different here at Neil McNeil,” he said. “We look at the whole child, everything from their spiritual development to their social development and also their academic development.

“I think when you treat kids like that, not just as kids who come to school to learn math, that we get a different result.”