The Avon Maitland District School Board has approved a rollout of a boundary review process in Stratford.
Cheri Carter, Superintendent of Corporate Services, says overall in Stratford, their student capacity is under, but certain schools are getting full.
"There's a couple schools in the city itself that are over capacity. So Avon Public School and Bedford Public School both have more students than space within their building. Whereas other schools, neighbouring schools within the city, are under capacity. So they actually have space. So a boundary review process is just looking at, basically, is there a boundary you should be adjusting to right the sizes within that area," Carter explained.
Carter says this will be a lengthy process, starting with a few steps first.
"Right now, for the month of October, we're recruiting members to sit on the committee. So we're looking for up to three members for each elementary school in the planning area, so there's twelve elementary schools. We'll basically need to form a committee that we can run some ideas and options through, that we would present. So once the committee's struck, starting in November, we have three meetings scheduled, where we'll be taking info and some options to that committee to get feedback," added Carter.
Around January or February, Carter shares that they'll do a community consultation, and then review that with the committee, and present it to the trustees in the spring, for a possible decision likely around June. More can be found by visiting amdsb.ca/stratfordboundaryreview.
Overall in the AMDSB region, Carter says the school board is in good shape in terms of capacity after a lengthy period of time where enrollment was in decline.
"So now we're levelling off, so we're actually seeing a bit of growth in the elementary, and the secondary decline is not as bad as it used to be. So as a whole, we're actually balanced or slightly increasing enrollment in the whole school board," said Carter. "But we do have pressure areas, for sure. North Perth, for example, is really a high pressure area where growth is just moving so fast in that area where we'll really need to move fast to address some of those pressures. Then in the Stratford area, we have pockets, like what this boundary review is talking about. Pockets or areas of the city that are really booming, and we need to address them."
