The public school board for London, Ont., has announced it is capping enrolment at White Oaks Public School immediately and moving students who registered between July 1 and Aug. 20.
The only exception is for siblings of current White Oaks Public School students, who are still able to register.
The Thames Valley District School Board said Monday that the decision is the result of “a rapid increase in the number of families in the school’s attendance area and the holding zones it accommodates” and overall “unprecedented growth in London.”
Mark Fisher, director of education, says the student population has roughly doubled in size in the last six years.
“We’ve basically run out of room in the building. We put our 12th portable on site, which is the maximum allowable,” he explained.
“We knew that that was coming at some point. It just happened a lot earlier than we anticipated.”
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Families that registered for the school, just west of White Oaks Mall off Bradley Avenue, before June 30 are not impacted by the announcement.
However, the roughly 25 students who were registered between July 1 and Aug. 20 will instead be going to Nicholas Wilson Public School, roughly two kilometres northeast. Transportation will be provided, the board says.
“Alternatively, families that registered after June 30 can complete an out of area exemption request for another school where there is space. Transportation will not be provided in this case,” the board added.
The TVDSB has faced increasing enrolment pressures in recent years and currently has eight attendance area reviews underway across its jurisdictions, including in St. Thomas and Woodstock, Ont. The board has also received approval for four new schools, one school expansion, and one new child-care and family centre attached to a school.
Among those new schools is one in southwest London that would have space for 804 students as well as child-care space for 10 infants, 30 toddlers and 48 preschoolers. Pending further approvals, the $20.7-million project could be completed for the 2025-26 school year.
“Even with that new school opening in this part of the city, we’re going to make an application for another school in the same area,” Fisher said.
“We are playing a little bit of catchup here. This work rightfully should have been started a number of years earlier.”
While no other schools will be impacted for the start of the 2023-24 school year, which gets underway Sept. 6, Fisher said that “we do have four or five other schools that are on our watch list that at some point over the next six, nine, 12 months could be impacted.”
He added that the TVDSB would be bringing that information forward to its board of trustees.
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