School District No. 5 (SD5) plans to review current catchment areas for Cranbrook schools through a process of consultation with parents and schools beginning in the fall.

Any changes could be implemented effective the 2014/2015 school year.

A catchment area determines which school a student is assigned based on where they live in relation to that school. Boards of Education are responsible for assigning school catchment areas for each school.

According to Board Chair Frank Lento, school catchment areas should be reviewed periodically to ensure the best distribution of students as new neighbourhoods develop and existing neighbourhoods change. Prior to determining whether or not changes to catchment areas would be beneficial, the board needs to establish what official as well as historical catchment areas currently exist within Cranbrook.

“We’re also looking at how well our bus routes support current catchment areas and how catchment areas affect students transitioning from elementary to middle school. We need to maintain the right balance of students so that both middle schools can continue to provide exceptional and varied programming.”

Under the current catchment system there are some elementary schools where all students transition to the same middle school together and others where students are divided between Laurie and Parkland Middle schools based on where the students live.

“We don’t think that’s ideal for kids,” says Lento. “There’s a real sense of community in every school; friendships are made and relationships are built. To tell two friends that they can’t attend the same middle school simply because they live on opposite sides of the street doesn’t seem right.”

While parents can request that their child attend an out‐of-catchment school, enrolment for out‐of‐catchment students is based on a priority system – the highest of which is whether or not there’s room at the requested school.

But as Lento points out, it’s not the physical space of a school that determines if there’s room or not. “It’s classroom capacity, not school capacity that we’re looking at. If our classrooms are full, we’re out of room.”

Meetings will be set up with individual schools in the fall at which point parents will be invited to review findings and provide input for consideration by the board for implementation in the 2014/2015 school year in advance of fall registration.

To view the SD5 policy, 3.1 Student Registration Enrolment and Placement go to www.sd5.bc.ca/board/policymanual/.

SD5

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