School board trustees are close to resolving the district's uneven school population issues with a policy vote Tuesday evening, but additional time for "tweaking" would still have been worthwhile, says district parent advisory council chairman Don Sabo.
The policy adopted on Tuesday night capped off a 60-day consultation process and gives enrollment preference to children who already have a brother or sister in the school.
But, said Sabo, an additional 30 days or seeing a draft version midway through would have prevented headaches.
When the policy was posted on the school district website on Monday, Sabo received a flood of e-mails from parents with suggestions for changes, which he informed trustees of during the public input portion on Tuesday night.
"It's basically a sign that they could've come out with a draft," Sabo said.
The policy is significant for schools at capacity - mostly in College Heights and the Hart areas.
The policy states registration for students within a program will be accepted in a descending order of priority, with siblings first, school district child second and non-school district child third.
And catchment for regular schools will rely on the neighbourhood, while catchment for choice schools and programs will encompass the entire district.
Parents are also now required to register kindergarten children in the regular program in their catchment area or at a choice program school - French immersion, aboriginal or traditional.
And parents who want their children at a school outside their catchment area must apply on the district's on-line transfer process.
Kindergarten registration takes place Wednesday and the on-line transfer process is set for Tuesday, Feb. 7, starting at 9 a.m.
Parent Sarah Holland said the policy is better than the proposal raised in October but is not so sure it's an improvement over the policy passed in 2008.
She finds the requirement that parents putting their children into regular school to register them in their catchment area first to be onerous.
And she questioned placing out-of-catchment children with a sibling at a regular school behind in-catchment children without, because it risks breaking up families, a major complaint about the first-come, first-serve proposal raised in October.
"I think it would've been really simple just to modify the policy to say you can apply to the school in your catchment or the school that your older siblings go to," she said.
Holland also noted that in establishing the entire district as the catchment area for choice schools and programs, trustees failed to consider the district's obligation to provide transportation for all students within their catchment area.
"I'm not sure they realized the ramifications," she said. "Does this mean that the school district will take responsibility for transporting choice school and choice program kids to their schools, no matter where they live?"
Trustees voted 4-3 Tuesday night in favour of a lottery system for instances where there is not enough room in a school or program to accommodate all students in a category of preference, not 5-2 as reported in Wednesday's Citizen newspaper. Lyn Hall voted against the lottery proposal not in favour as was reported in yesterday's issue of The Citizen.
