Discussion over potential school boundary changes will go on longer than first thought, but the Thames Valley District School board is reassuring parents and guardians that proposed changes will not force their kids to switch schools.
At Tuesday’s board meeting, trustees were presented with the London Secondary School Attendance Area Review Report, which included 23 recommendations, as part of plans to address challenges posed by growth in southwestern Ontario.
Ben Puzanov, manager of planning, says none of those recommendations involved transferring current students or barring new students from attending the same high school as their siblings.
“We did recommend last night that all current students would remain at their current schools until graduation and siblings would be able to attend that same school, provided the older student is still at that particular site,” he explained.
“The rationale for that is we can continue to offer transportation to students and their siblings, to those existing schools. However, once these students, the older students graduate, we are challenged in routing dual bus routes to different schools from the same area.”
Regardless, trustees voted to defer any decision and request that staff create additional options for review in the fall.
“There’ll be some additional discussions with trustees happening at the September Planning and Priorities Advisory Committee meeting,” said Puzanov.
Because of the deferral, Puzanov says the implementation schedule will have to change. It was initially recommended that changes take effect in September of 2024.
The board adds that the process has involved “extensive public and school community input” that began at the end of January. All boundary review updates can be found on the board’s website.
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