Students in public schools in Calgary are boosting the overall results for provincial exams.

The Calgary Board of Education released results today from last spring's provincial achievement tests. The tests are designed to determine if students are learning what they are expected to learn and help education officials decide whether changes need to be made in the classroom.

When it comes to nine subjects tested, students in grades 3, 6 and 9 outperformed the province at an acceptable level and in seven subjects the results were a standard of excellence.

However, only a small number of Grade 9 students wrote the tests as they were cancelled because of massive flooding in June.

For the Grade 12 exams written before the floods, Calgary students achieved acceptable standards and standards of excellence equal to or above other results for students elsewhere in the province.

CBE board chair Pat Cochrane says the results should send a strong message to parents.

"Our kids are grappling with these things and are succeeding," she said. "Our teachers are grappling with how to teach kids and they're succeeding. And so I think for parents they can look at this school board and have a lot of confidence that on the markers that the province is setting for academic achievement we're achieving, which means their kids are doing well."

'Pulling the rest of the province up'

Cochrane said that also applies to English language learners and special education students. 

"If you look at our English language learners — they are pulling the rest of the province up," she said. "Our special education students — who you often say, 'They can't do very well, they have a behavioural issue or developmental issue or something' — look at how they are doing. They are pulling the province along with them as well."

The provincial government is making the exams optional for students in grades 3, 6 and 9 and students can instead complete start-of-term literacy and numeracy assessments.  

The new tests will be phased in over a few years, starting in September 2014 with Grade 3. Full implementation for Grade 3 is expected by the following year.

The new testing for Grades 6 and 9 are will start to be phased in in 2015 and 2016, respectively.

But final provincial exams in Grade 12 will continue to be worth 50 per cent of a student's final grade.  

The CBE will announce later this month whether its Grade 3 students will write provincial achievement tests next June.