TCDSB delays decision on secondary school boundaries

New Pathway.

The news that graduates of the primary Catholic Schools in Etobicoke may have to attend different high schools than the ones their parents have counted on, has shaken the Etobicoke Ukrainian community. Earlier this year, Ontario’s Ministry of Education has directed the Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) to adopt fixed attendance boundaries for all secondary schools to be consistent with most Ontario school Boards. Complying with this request will help TCDSB qualify for funds to build new schools in areas where existing schools are overcrowded.

At this stage, TCDSB staff created a draft secondary school admission boundary policy and carried out a consultation process with communities. The Board’s survey was done among almost 2,400 people and brought overwhelmingly negative reaction (54%-68% against) to different aspects of proposed changes.

In its letter to the TCDSB, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Toronto branch, acknowledged the need for TCDSB to consider the implementation of geographic parameters for enrolment of students in secondary schools. UCC-Toronto also pointed to the fact that approximately 85% of the three TCDSB Eastern Rite schools students live quite far from their schools and require transportation. Because of this, UCC Toronto said, the proposed secondary school attendance boundaries do not make sense: “Mandating that Eastern Rite elementary school students attend the secondary school closest to their Eastern Rite elementary school will, in many cases, cause students to pass one or more TCDSB secondary schools closer to their family homes, and it would ignore a decades-long relationship our community has with three TCDSB secondary schools in Etobicoke. These factors would certainly result in a greater loss of TCDSB elementary students to the public school board for secondary school. ”

UCC Toronto, along with parents of students and the administration of Josyf Cardinal Slipyj, St. Demetrius and St. Josaphat schools proposed the TCDSB to incorporate language regarding the Eastern Rite schools into the draft secondary school attendance policy. The Ukrainian community is hopeful that TCDSB will acknowledge the decades-long relationship of the Eastern Rite schools with three secondary schools in Etobicoke – Bishop Allen Academy, Father John Redmond and Michael Power/St. Joseph – which have consistently taken in 90%-95% of primary school graduates from the three Eastern Rite schools. The historical relationship with these schools has led to an appreciation, understanding and accommodation of Eastern Rite masses, religious feast days, traditions and holidays. These three high schools are in most cases the closest to most of the homes of the students from the three Eastern Rite schools. UCC-Toronto asked TCDSB that the secondary school boundary policy state that students graduating from the three Eastern Rite schools be able to continue to select from among Bishop Allen, Father John Redmond and Michael Power schools which “will result in continued growth in enrolment at the Eastern Rite elementary schools as well as pull through enrolment into TCDSB secondary schools.”

This issue was discussed at June 8 TCDSB Board meeting. At the meeting, numerous delegations from different primary Catholic Schools spoke to the Board about the boundary proposal. The chair of the St. Demetrius' Catholic School Parent Council, Taras Kalymon spoke on behalf of the Council. According to attendees of the June 8 meeting, there was a strong message from all delegations at the meeting that the boundary proposal and consultation period was rushed, not thoughtfully considered, and would be possibly forcing students into less than ideal situations because of a hastily made decision.

At the meeting, the TCDSB trustees sent the secondary school boundary issue back to the TCDSB staff with a request to revise and report back at the next corporate services meeting that will happen in October 2017. This revision is expected to include the feedback from the delegate presentations at the last few Board meetings, as well as the input from community consultations held at several elementary and secondary schools across Etobicoke over the past month. The trustees also requested staff report back on: a comprehensive review of all TCDSB secondary programming and its options for expanding programming at other sites in the future; a review of the international student admissions by the Board (cited by parents as one of the reasons for over-enrolment at certain Etobicoke secondary schools); a plan for broader consultations from communities the Board has not heard from; a review of ‘905 student' admissions; and other information relevant to this decision.

The decision on any changes in secondary school boundaries is therefore delayed. The TCDSB Board will now have some time to choose from different options. The Board’s reaction to the overpopulation problem, which persists at some secondary schools, was to spread primary school graduates evenly across Toronto where they would often end up at schools which suffer from under-enrollment and lower academic rates, compared to the schools the graduates would hope to enroll into. One of the options, proposed by some parent councils, is building a new TCDSB secondary school somewhere in the central Etobicoke area, which would help address the overpopulation concerns, in particular, at the Bishop Allen Academy.

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