More and more aboriginal students in the Kamloops-Thompson School District are graduating these days.

The completion rate for all students is 84 per cent, while it’s 78 per cent for aboriginal students.

Board Chair Kathleen Karpuk says there’s been a marked improvement in the last 13 years, which was 76 per cent for all students, and 46 per cent for Aboriginal students.

“We used to have a gap of about 20 per cent in terms of the number of aboriginal students versus non-aboriginal students graduating,” she said. “Now that gap has decreased to six per cent.”

“We’re very happy proud of that, and we’re still working very hard because our goal is parity.”

She’s pleased with the improvement but says more work has to be done.

“We’re starting to identify students as early as Grade 8, who may be in danger of not graduating,” Karpuk added. “We can then focus resources on them to make sure that we’re meeting their needs so that they don’t fall through the gaps, and that we make sure they are able to graduate.”

There are teams of people working on helping the district reach that goal.

The school district’s graduation goal for all students is 90 per cent.