UnSplash
Halton District School Board (HDSB)’s decision to redirect most new students enrolling at a North Oakville school is triggering anxiety and grievances among the residents.
Dr. David R. Williams (DDW) Public School, the elementary homeschool for the rapidly expanding communities in northeast Oakville, has been reeling from overcapacity for quite some time. At a board meeting on Jan.25, HDSB announced the new redirection plan, effective Jan. 26, to ease its “ongoing enrollment pressure.”
Once the enrollment cap of 1,300 students and/or 56 classrooms is reached, new registrations for Grades SK-8 in the English language program and Grades 3-8 in the French Immersion Program will be redirected to Palermo Public School. For further details, families can read the HDSB report.
The redirection plan will remain in place until “enrolment and/or classrooms utilization drop below the cap;” and/or the boundary review for two upcoming public schools in northeast Oakville is done and implemented.
A concerned resident of Ward 7 fears that her youngest child might have to start grade 1 in Palermo Public School next year because DDW will indeed have exceeded its capacity by then. Maya (name changed) has been a resident of the Preserve neighbourhood since 2014. “Proximity to this school was the reason behind our decision to settle in Ward 7,” she shares.
Maya’s older child attends Grade 5 French immersion at DDW. However, like many families with multiple children, she worries that her younger child will not have any guaranteed spot at the school despite having an older sibling. She adds how the redirection measure takes away the advantage of having an older sibling in the same school, not to mention the inconvenience of shuttling children to and from school.
She confirms that the capacity issue at DDW has a spiralling effect on the quality of education, thanks to the high teacher-student ratios and the safety of younger children placed in portables.
Maya also points out that the situation is “quite frankly upsetting and far more deep-rooted than we realize.” She adds some impacted families might be able to afford private school to avoid this fiasco, but those who rely on the public education system are in for a tough time.
According to HDSB, Palermo Public School, with English and French Immersion programs, has “sufficient built capacity and future portable capacity to temporarily accommodate students” in the DDW Public School boundary. However, most local parents see this step as a reflection of a “colossal planning failure.” A Ward 7 resident with two children attending DDW worries that the redirection move will further impact the tanking housing prices in the area, considering most young families, including those who don’t drive, consider proximity to schools while making their purchase decisions.
