The Greater Victoria School District has voted for new rules for school enrolment.
Siblings will now be at a lower priority for school enrolment following a vote at the Greater Victoria School District board meeting Monday night.
The Greater Victoria school board voted 6-3 Monday night to change its school enrolment policies to help deal with the growth of students in the district. The changes will take effect in the 2018-19 school year.
At the top of the list of enrolment priorities are students who are re-enrolling in a school, followed by siblings in a school catchment area, new catchment area children, non-catchment siblings, non-catchment children and non-school district children.
The changes will take effect in the 2018-19 school year.
At the top of the list of enrolment priorities are students who are reenrolling in a school, followed by siblings in a school catchment area, new catchment area children, a non-catchment sibling, a non-catchment area child and a non-school district child.
READ MORE: Greater Victoria School District reviewing placement rules
The former rules had siblings of students already attending the school at a higher priority then catchment area students, although the district has usually been able to accommodate both in the past. Re-enrolling students were still in the top spot, followed by their siblings, then catchment-area students.
Joyce Preston, a parent who spoke at the meeting, said she was in favour of making sure catchment children could attend neighbourhood schools, adding that the entire community benefits when students can attend a school in a neighbourhood. She added that the students can participate in events in the community and the neighbourhood can support the children.
School board chairwoman Edith Loring-Kuhanga said the decision was difficult for all the trustees as they tried to figure out what is in the best interest of the students and the school district.
“Unfortunately, if we don’t do it now, we’re going to have to do it in the future,” Loring-Kuhanga said.
A district committee, including four parents and two students, has been studying enrolment over the past 10 months. The committee is also looking at the possibility of reopening closed schools and revising catchment boundaries.
From 2003 to 2007, seven elementary schools were closed due to a decline in enrolment. There are also spacing concerns due to the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision last year that restored B.C. teachers’ 2002 contract language, leading to smaller class sizes.
Parents and students were surveyed online in March and April, with around 3,400 parents and 418 students responding.
Sixty-one per cent of respondents favoured a child attending a school in the catchment area over siblings attending the same school at the same time.
The district expects to see an increase of 2,000 students from 19,000 to 21,000 over the next decade.
Alexa Huffman
