Sweeping changes to school boundaries and programming at multiple Peterborough, Ont., area public schools aim to address student overcapacity and rising student enrolment.
On Thursday, the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board sent electronic letters to parents advising of a proposed major overhaul of school boundaries to deal with student overcapacity. The board says it has experienced an annual growth of two per cent over the past five years — a trend that’s expected to continue.
On the school board’s website, each of the extensive accommodation four concepts — labelled A, B, C and D — has different new school boundaries which would involve some students relocating to new a school in either Peterborough city or Peterborough County.
The board has a goal of implementing one of the concepts by September 2025 — Phase 1 of the board’s long-term accommodation plan.
In total, the concepts proposed could impact more than two dozen schools in Peterborough city and county.
“We know that the situation for some schools is not sustainable and that changes are needed to address the current challenges,” stated Rita Russo, the board’s director of education. “A number of possible strategies have been identified to manage student growth and balance the numbers of students at local schools.”
Jaine Klassen Jeninga, board chairperson, says while it’s “exciting” to be a growing school board, the accommodation pressures are causing to board to take a “hard look” at various areas within the board’s jurisdiction.
She says several schools — in particular Crestwood Secondary School in Cavan-Monaghan Township near Peterborough’s west end — are already significantly over capacity between 120 up to 200 per cent or have projections that could reach 200 per cent.
“All three regions — Clarington, Northumberland (County), Peterborough, but right now we are looking and focusing on Peterborough,” she said. “Because they have some of the greatest accommodation pressures right through the city and the county. We’re looking at ways to to be able to create an outlook that would be a long-term plan and not just band-aid solutions.
“We want to be able to create long-term solutions that will be apparent, not just for now but 10 years down the road.”
Jeninga said such “band-aid solutions” include building a new school or reopening a school that had been closed.
“At this time the province continues to have a moratorium on school closures and limited capital for new school builds,” she said. “Being able to open schools that were closed — it is going fix one school but it’s not fixing the system. It’s not going to address the continued challenges in our secondary system going forward.
Jeninga says student growth has been spurred by new subdivisions in the region and more new Canadians which are causing an “imbalance” in the student populations at some of the secondary schools and their feeder schools.
“We need to address them because — in all honesty — some of the buildings just won’t be able to maintain the numbers that we’re seeing,” she said.
Program changes
The board is also proposing family of school grouping changes, grade or cohort changes and program changes with a key focus on French Immersion and possible expansion of the Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe language) program.
“Some schools have too many students compared to the size of the school building, while other schools have unused space,” the board states. “When a school has too many or too few students, school staffing and program offerings can be challenging.”
The school board says the concepts are based on balancing student numbers between schools, maintaining and providing high-quality learning, developing long-term sustainable plans, maintaining walkable routes to school and streamlining transportation services.
For example, under concept C, the French immersion program would be relocated from Adam Scott Intermediate School and Adam Scott Collegiate Vocational Institute (CVI) in Peterborough to Kenner Intermediate School and Kenner CVI.
A background study notes Kenner CVI’s family of schools is “noticeably below” capacity with more than 1,000 pupil spaces projected over the next decade.
Another example under concept A, shows Chemong Public School, a junior kindergarten to Grade 8 school in Bridgenorth, north of the city, would become part of the Crestwood Secondary Schools family of schools. Students would attend Crestwood for Grades 9-12. French Immersion students would continue to attend Edmison Heights PS/Adam Scott Intermediate School in the city.
Highland Heights Public School in Peterborough would be impacted by all four proposed concepts. Each concept has some students currently living in the existing boundary relocating within the boundary of Queen Mary PS. French Immersion students at Highland Heights would attend Prince of Wales PS.
Community engagement
A drop-in community engagement meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 17 at Kenner Collegiate from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
The open house format invites families to drop into the meeting at any time to review the possible accommodation concepts and provide feedback.
An online survey is also open for feedback.
“They are concepts — so there is lots of room for discussion in the days and months ahead,” said Jeniga.
She said all the feedback will be reviewed and in the fall, revised or updated concepts could be presented in the fall that will be reviewed by a resource committee followed by further public consultation.
“Where we start with four, we may end up with two or three,” she said. “And then have more community consultation for a final decision in December 2024. Implementation way down the line in 2025.”
The concepts are the latest steps after the school board in February announced grade changes effective this fall at Crestwood Secondary School and Crestwood Intermediate School. In January, the board also approved program changes at Kaawaate East City Public School in the city’s east end.
— with files from Robert Lothian/Global News Peterborough