Performances in math for Chinook School Division students in Grades 3, 6 and 9 over the past year decreased slighty, based off the Vancouver Islandnet Math Assessment.

Ed Varjassy is a curriculum coordinator in the school division, and presented the numbers at the school division's board meeting in Swift Current on Monday.

According to the assessment of 1,200 students in June, there were 0.8 per cent of students either meeting or exceeding expectations compared to the previous year.

Varjassy said he was glad that math results didn't fall too much during a time where there was less invested in math.

"Math this year was not really a big focus," said Varjassy. "There was not a lot of extra work put into helping teachers with math. I think for me it was seeing that we didn't have a significant drop - although we dropped .8 per cent, it was less than one per cent, and we've maintained what we've built over the last six years. To me, just overall that was a highlight."

Varjassy said when more resources were going to education they took advantage. Now, with the provincial budget cutting $22 million from funds going to operating funds for schools, Varjassy said it's "key" that they have such a talented staff.

"I think we are fortunate the way we did things in Chinook. We were timely, when we had some resources available to us over the last few years, we had coaches in place and they worked with our teachers, provided lots of professional development for them. And we've got them in a really good place. They were really understanding in what we were trying to accomplish in math and those resources won't be there moving forward. We will work with our new teachers. We have some resources and coaching that we will be dedicating to working with our new teachers and bringing them up to speed with how we do things in Chinook."

Another topic of Varjassy's presentation was the effect of intervention programs in helping out students falling behind in math.

"The last couple years we have been working at implementing an intervention program, where we've worked with some of the students not at grade level - particularly at Grades K to 2," he said. "We do some work with any students that are falling behind, and we also work with our Grades 6 to 9. The intervention programs that we've put in place the last few years, they've been quite successful."

The intervention programs are expected to increase for math, with a Tier-3-level intervention being added this year that focuses on the younger grades.