BMLSS ranked 261 of the 725 English and French, public and separate secondary schools from across Ontario. The schools were ranked based on seven indicators from literacy and mathematics skills tests administered by the province’s Education Quality and Accountability Office. Last year its ranking was 401.

St. Michael’s Choir of Toronto and St. Michael of Kemptville joined the Canadian International School of Hong Kong and the Canadian School of India in Bangalore as the only schools to rate a “10” in the report card.

The overall rating out of 10 shows how a school is doing academically compared to other schools. BMLSS received a rating of 7, up from 6.3 last year.

Huntsville High School came second locally with a ranking of 379, compared to last year’s 473. Huntsville’s overall rating was 6.4.

Gravenhurst High School with the highest local ranking of 343 last year, slipped to 517 this year with an overall rating of 5.5.

St. Dominic Catholic Secondary School ranked 547 of the 725 schools with an overall rating of 5.2.

“The report card contains a wealth of information that allows parents to track ongoing trends over a number of years and compare the performance of schools within their neighbourhood,” said Peter Cowley, the Institute’s director of school performance studies and co-author of the report card. “This is information that parents can’t easily get anywhere else.”

Local school boards do not agree with Cowley that the report card is helpful.

“All Trillium Lakelands District School Board schools deliver curriculum which encourages critical thinking, problem solving, academic success and citizenship,” said Jeanne Pengelly, TLDSB communications officer. “The ranking of schools can undermine valid evaluation and testing measures.”

Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board (SMCDSB) does not support the use of EQAO for ranking of schools, said Dianne Legg, board manager of corporate communications and public affairs.

“The EQAO results were really never intended at all of a way of comparing schools to schools,” she said. “The results are to be used for individual schools to be able to identify where they need to look at improvements and where they’ve had successes.”

The data is designed to be examined over a period of years to see where they need to focus and what are their strengths and weaknesses. The Fraser Institute ranks schools based on EQAO results only, and does not take into consideration many other factors that go into the assessment of schools and students.

“The board does not find the results helpful,” said Legg. “Using the test results the way the Fraser Institute does, flies in the face of what the tests were designed for in the first place.”