The attendance boundary of a downtown school emerged as a divisive issue at the Toronto Catholic District School Board meeting last Thursday night, with parents, the local parish priest and board staff at odds over its proposed borders.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help (OLPH) - a 350-pupil, JK to Grade 8 school located on Garfield Avenue - was recently identified as a candidate for a fixed attendance boundary review due to over-enrolment challenges.
While board staff has come forward with a set of recommended boundaries they say will act as "an effective means of managing enrolment in a school in order to optimize the use of available facility space," both the parent members of OLPH's Catholic School Advisory Committee (CSAC) and the OLPH parish priest disagree - albeit for different reasons.
Speaking on behalf of CSAC members, chair Natalie Dukszta said she and other parents who came together as representatives on the school's Boundary Review Committee (BRC) were "extremely disappointed" with the board's recommendation.
"It simply doesn't address our concerns about the overcrowding at OLPH," she said. "In fact, it truly feels like the board ignored our report that we spent months putting together."
In a report to the board, TCDSB staff recommended the following boundaries for OLPH: Chaplin Crescent and Davisville Avenue to the north; Forman Avenue, Balliol Street, Cleveland Street, Merton Street, Bayview Avenue, Moore Avenue, valley lands, and the Bayview Avenue extension to the east; Bloor Street and the Prince Edward viaduct to the south; and Avenue Road, St. Clair Avenue West, Oriole Road, Lonsdale Road, Oriole Parkway, Kilbarry Road to the west.
In contrast, Dukszta said BRC members recommended a much smaller boundary - one that combined the bus boundary with the parish boundary.
"Instead the board proposed a boundary that is significantly larger than our existing bus boundary. How can the board suggest an even bigger boundary than we already have when we need to have full-day kindergarten in place within two years and we're trying to decrease the number of students in our school?" she asked trustees at the January 26 meeting.
"We are confused at who the board is designing this boundary for," she added. "It certainly does not seem to be for the children at OLPH, and it certainly doesn't appear to be designed in order to right size our school."
Henry Miller, also a member of the OLPH BRC, disagreed - to an extent - with his fellow BRC members. He stressed the "paramount importance within a faith-based education system that the family-parish-school triangle be greatly respected and supported."
"Accordingly, the OLPH fixed enrolment boundary must include all of the areas within the OLPH parish boundary," he said.
"I like the BRC report, except for a small area to the north...where there's a fear that the highrises and density may lead to an enrolment beyond the capacity we can handle, but that area is in the parish and my view is that if people live in the parish, they should be allowed to attend their parish school."
In a letter to the board, Fr. James Hannah, pastor of OLPH parish, echoed Miller's statements about the school's northern boundary.
"The area in question is primarily the only area in the parish with low-income families, new immigrants, and refugees," he wrote. "To exclude this population from the school makes OLPH primarily a school for the more well-to-do families of the parish. I strongly believe that this undermines the richness that a more economically and socially diverse population can bring to a school."
Recognizing the concerns of her ratepayers, Toronto Trustee Joanne Davis said unless staff come forward with some answers, "I, for one, will not be prepared to approve or support this recommendation that's been put forward by staff."
While a decision on the school's boundaries is not expected until the March 29 meeting of the board, the public is invited to provide input on the staff recommendations at the Feb. 23 meeting.