Grade Seven students from both Spruceland Traditional and Edgewood elementary schools will now be attending high school at D.P. Todd Secondary School, starting September 2020.
Catchment changes for both schools were approved after robust debate from School District 57's board of education at last night’s (Oct. 29) regular public meeting.
Spruceland and Edgewood catchments were both officially changed from Duchess Park Secondary's catchment and moved to the D.P. Todd catchment.
“For the last year, I've chaired the education services committee and the catchment and capacity committee that came up with these recommendations,” said SD57 Trustee Ron Polillo.
“There’s been a lot of thoughts, a lot of preparation and a lot of consultation.”
The changes were recommended as a solution to overpopulation at Duchess Park, which is a triple-track secondary school hosting English, Francophone and French-immersion programming.
Before debate began, the board also heard from two parents who spoke during the public input session to oppose the proposed changes to D.P. Todd's catchment.
To accommodate the change, the district is also looking at renovating the secondary school, potentially adding 300 seats to the current 600, which is part of the district’s five-year capital plan, and it’s also considering using additional portables at D.P. Todd in the short-term.
The Spruceland Elementary catchment changes were unanimously approved by the board after some debate.
The point was made that Spruceland Traditional is a choice school, so, if the changes were approved, students would have the choice to either attend D.P. Todd or the catchment school of their residential address.
The more difficult decision was Edgewood Elementary catchment area, as the board debated this change for over an hour.
Three of the board members, Trustees Shuirose Vailmohamed, Sharel Warrington and SD57 Board Chair Tim Bennett, eventually voted to oppose the change.
“D.P. Todd does have a footprint where we can expand that school hopefully with help from the Ministry,” said Polillo. “But, in the meantime, there is room where we can accommodate more modulars. Is it ideal? No, but we had a real tough decision in front of us.”
Trustee Warrington put a motion forward to postpone the Edgewood recommendation until staff could come back with more information, after some discussion of whether or not the new Kelly Road could be looked at as an alternative.
“I have grave concerns about the decision to move Edgewood into D.P. Todd.,” said Warrington, noting the proposed expansion of D.P. Todd is not a done deal.
“I really ask each of you to think carefully about what options we truly might have - is the only option to suggest moving the catchment to D.P. Todd or is there another option that we might want to consider?”
However, the motion to postpone was defeated when it came to a vote and the board members were then required to make a decision that night.
“We have been delaying this decision quite frankly for years,” said Polillo.
“We don’t have assurance from the ministry, but we are faced with a difficult decision and at this time with the information with the data it's time to make a decision and I believe this is the right recommendation right now.”
When it came time to vote, Trustees Trent Derrick, Ron Polillo, Bob Thompson and Betty Bekkering voted in favour, passing the motion.
Another issue that arose during both debates was how these changes would affect sibling groups as parents may end up having siblings attending different schools if they already have one child in high school.
After both catchments for the elementary schools were officially changed to D.P. Todd Secondary, Trustee Warrington introduced a notice of motion to be considered at a later meeting.
“We need to consider the impact on every child and every family when we make these decisions,” said Warrington. “We may need to at some point address the sibling issue.”
This motion would consider allowing students from Edgewood or Spruceland who already had a sibling at the Duchess Park catchment, to be “grandfathered in” or automatically accepted at Duchess Park in order to keep families together.
