“The argument is, those are interesting schools,” says David Johnson, an economics professor at Wilfrid Laurier University. “We ought to go and find out why that’s happening.”

It appears there’s no single explanation.

In interviews with parents, educators and stakeholders, The Spectator found there’s often a complex web of interventions at work in Hamilton’s standout schools. And everything from high expectations to a positive schools culture can also play a role.

Kelly Charles had her work cut out for her.

When the principal arrived at Adelaide Hoodless six years ago, outcomes at the school were bleak.

One in three kids was passing the province’s Grade 3 reading test, and in writing, just slightly more. Only one in four was meeting the standard in math.

In Grade 6, fewer than half were reading and writing at grade level. In math, it was around 20 per cent.

“When I got here, I was kind of standing on my soapbox to say there’s absolutely no reason whatsoever why these children cannot learn and do really well,” Charles says. “That was the message that I brought with me, and that is the message I’m hammering home every day.”

The school isn’t there yet, she adds — “not by any stretch.” It still needs to reach boys a bit better, as well as its students with special needs.

But it’s on its way.

In the past six years, Eastmount Park, a small, yellow brick school on the central Mountain, raised its average pass rate in reading by 52 per cent — more than any other school in the city. For writing, it was W.H. Ballard in east Hamilton, which saw a 51 per cent boost.

In math, a subject in which pass rates have been sliding in local boards and across Ontario, Adelaide Hoodless improved its average score by 150 per cent.

These three schools bettered their academic outcomes despite having more low-income and special needs students than the provincial average. And although it might not be immediately apparent, these three schools stand out.

Grade 2 was tough for Orion Mack.

“He had a bad fit with his teacher,” says his dad, Neil. “He was struggling. She spent the entire year telling us we needed to medicate our son.”

Then the family left Toronto for Hamilton. They bought an old home in the St. Clair neighbourhood, and Orion starting going to the local school, Adelaide Hoodless.

That’s where things turned around.

Last year, Orion excelled on the Grade 3 EQAO assessment. In his dad’s words, he went from being “a failing, remedial student” to “a success story.”

Neil says there’s no single reason why his son is doing better. In his view, school programs, a variety of extracurricular activities, and the tight-knit community all played a role, as did motivated teachers and an engaged principal who was committed to bringing the school up.

“I think it’s just a case where a lot of things are coming together to make it better,” he says.

Improvements aren’t the only way to identify academic outliers.

Just ask David Johnson, the Laurier prof.

In his work for the C.D. Howe Institute, a Toronto-based think-tank, Johnson has analyzed school test scores in Ontario, Alberta and B.C. But instead of looking only at pass rates or top marks, he focuses on how schools perform relative to one another when the unique characteristics of their communities are factored into the equation.

“We want to compare schools that are comparable,” he says. “It’s simply not interesting to compare a school in the best district of Ancaster to the school down near Hamilton General Hospital.”

Take St. Martin of Tours. In a 2012 report, Johnson and co-author Robbie Brydon found the Stoney Creek school had better outcomes than at least 99 per cent of schools with similar demographics. In Johnson’s view, it’s an indication that good practices are at work.

G.L. Armstrong, by contrast, had worse outcomes than almost all other comparable schools — a sign, according to Johnson’s report, that there could be room for improvement.

The Spectator asked David Rusk, a Washington-based urban consultant, to weigh in on Hamilton’s EQAO results.

Like Johnson, he used a statistical method that factors income, special education rates and other demographic variables, such as lone-parent rates and parent education, into the mix in order to look at how well students fared on the Grade 6 assessments over the past three years.

What Rusk found was that most schools in Hamilton are doing about as well as predicted, while about 16 per cent, including Queen’s Rangers and C.B. Stirling, are faring worse.

Around 15 per cent of schools, including Our Lady of the Assumption, Norwood Park and St. Lawrence, are scoring higher than predicted, all things considered.

There are obstacles facing some of the families at St. Lawrence.

Poverty is one, language barriers another. There’s also an elevated chance that any given child will drop out.

“We’re in a neighbourhood where socio-economically and demographically there are challenges,” says Mike Goffredo, the school principal. “So there are a lot of things we have in place here to help our kids.”

He reels off the interventions.

There are after-school programs, a breakfast club, art classes and sports. There are specialized teachers and tutors, and the school’s Catholic faith.

“If you put all those things together, I think it explains why we’re doing well,” Goffredo says.

And it is, all factors considered, despite the school’s ostensibly low average scores — that is, a 72 per cent pass rate in writing and around 60 per cent in reading and math.

Consider Rusk’s analysis, which shows St. Lawrence scored 38 per cent higher than predicted on the province’s Grade 6 tests. Or Johnson’s research, which put the school in the 77th and 94th percentile when it comes to Grade 3 and 6 tests, respectively.

“We have the social, we do the academics, but the big umbrella is our faith,” Goffredo says. “We accept everybody, we treat them with respect and that makes a difference.”