Why Ottawa's biggest school board is blowing up boundaries

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board is successful the midst of its biggest overhaul since 2 boards amalgamated backmost successful 1998.

It's known for immoderate 15 years that it needed to woody with the mish mash of programs and people configurations it inherited from those days but ne'er truly addressed, and yet launched its reappraisal of simple schools almost a twelvemonth ago.

"Right present – connected each beforehand – we're spreading ourselves excessively thin, trying to bash programs that were portion of a patchwork," OCDSB acquisition director Pino Buffone explained. "We ne'er truly built the quilt that needs to tally programs solidly."

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But since maps of projected boundaries for 123 schools were released connected Feb. 28 showing families how the caller quilt is being stitched together, hundreds of parents present accidental the committee is blowing up schoolhouse communities successful ways that don't marque sense.

Parents are organizing rallies and questioning the method used. A few have adjacent registered children successful different boards for September. The committee is responding to the pressure and already revisiting immoderate parts of the plan.

At a precocious level, the OCDSB wants astir each schoolhouse successful the territory to connection some French immersion and English, and to phase out the alternate and mediate immersion programs. For immoderate kids, peculiar help would displacement into neighbourhood schools.

"Do less, better," arsenic Buffone put it.

It does look counterintuitive that by autumn 2026, OCDSB volition person astir the aforesaid fig of schools operating at over-capacity arsenic it does now. Another 13 would inactive beryllium little than 60 per cent full. Some schools would acquisition large swings from being over-capacity to under-capacity, or vice versa.

Some kids would person to power schools aft Grade 3, oregon locomotion past their aged schoolhouse and transverse large arterial roads to different further away. Schools with kinder-sized toilets would request to beryllium retrofitted to accommodate teenagers. Parents would woody with the logistics of having children in 2 schools, oregon would lose their after-care situations.

For it to marque sense, you person to see which precedence trumped others erstwhile planners astatine the schoolhouse committee sat down to redraw the maps.

Fifteen English-only schools

Buffone said the board's "shining star" is to connection French immersion successful each simple school, thing helium said would marque the OCDSB unsocial among boards successful Ontario.

The different mode to look astatine that extremity has been less articulated successful caller weeks: The OCDSB would nary longer have 15 single-track schools that connection lone English with halfway French.

By dual tracking astir each school, the committee aims to balance some superior socio-economic inequities it has spent years studying. That is the top driver for this review, Buffone said.

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The board's information shows its English program teaches a disproportionate fig of children from low-income households whose archetypal connection isn't English, oregon who are person peculiar acquisition needs.

English-only schools, successful particular, are "perpetuating de facto streaming and reinforcing inequities betwixt schools and students," the board's quality rights and equity advisor said successful a study successful January 2024. Schools should connection the same, modular programs, the advisor urged.

French immersion, connected the different hand, cropped up organically implicit galore years to conscionable request and had led to suggestions of a two-tier strategy wrong the board. French immersion students are much apt to travel from Canadian-born families and person higher household incomes.

"That conception of affluence tied to French is much humanities than world close now," Buffone said. "Our newcomers, they privation their children learning English and French."

There's nary denying request for French immersion is unusually beardown successful the superior city. Over time, the board's enrolment trends began to tilt.

These days, 65 per cent of children successful Grade 1 enrol successful French immersion, and 30 per cent choose English with halfway French. Less than 100 take the alternate programme that's apt to beryllium phased out.

By Grade 8, however, the pupil colonisation is enrolled astir arsenic successful French immersion and English.

Allowing students to displacement betwixt the 2 programs in a single school volition be a benefit, Buffone said. Even successful 1 family, a sibling can flourish in French immersion while different doesn't, he added.

Older neighbourhoods astir affected

Some of the biggest changes are truthful coming to the 15 schools that are presently English-only.

Cambridge Public School successful Chinatown, for instance, would leap from 28 per cent capableness to three-quarters full.

As planners sat down with that overarching extremity to connection French immersion everywhere, they knew different cardinal portion of the equation: nary schoolhouse would close. Ontario has had a moratorium connected schoolhouse closures since 2017.

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On March 4, OCDSB wide manager Karyn Ostafichuk told trustees conscionable however pugnacious it was to gully lines truthful schools would connection some French immersion and English but inactive beryllium "healthy and viable."

The trickiest areas, she said, were successful Ottawa's older neighbourhoods that have more schoolhouse spaces than students.

That's wherefore the changes are much melodramatic successful places like Alta Vista and Elmvale Acres, South Keys, Carlingwood, Centretown, on with agrarian villages similar Greely and North Gower.

And they are rather dramatic.

As 1 example, Arch Street Public School adjacent the Canterbury recreation complex is currently an English-only school at 44 per cent capacity. It offers inferior kindergarten done Grade 8, and astir each of its students travel from debased income families.

Under the caller maps, it would summation 144 students by September 2026, and connection lone inferior kindergarten to Grade 3 but successful some French immersion and English. It would beryllium paired with Hawthorne Public School, offering Grades 4 to 8.

Meanwhile, the agrarian North Gower/Marlborough Public School will go from 46 per cent capableness to 108 per cent and connection lone inferior kindergarten to Grade 3, portion its caller spouse school, Kars connected the Rideau, volition connection lone Grade 4 to Grade 8 and driblet from 85 per cent to 44 per cent full. North Gower would grow by 168 students, portion Kars connected the Rideau would lose 308 students.

Some schools consciousness much afloat than others at capacity, Ostafichuk explained, and many of those at over-capacity volition signifier retired alternate oregon mediate French immersion students implicit time.

'Lost a batch of spot successful the board'

When Natalee Lewis logged connected a mates of weeks agone to double-check the bound changes, she didn't expect immoderate surprises.

Her girl lives a six-minute locomotion from the colourful reddish doorway she enters each greeting successful the kindergarten gait astatine Roberta Bondar Public School. There's a play operation extracurricular and a caller daycare is being built, attached to the school.

"I enactment my code successful and and I thought, 'There indispensable beryllium thing wrong,'" Lewis said.

Lewis's girl would beryllium sent to Robert Bateman Public School, crossed four-lane Conroy Road, portion Roberta Bondar Public School would beryllium retrofitted to service only Grades 7 and 8, alternatively of inferior kindergarten to Grade 8.

Since then, Lewis has been swept up by the contented and has become a parent advocate in a mode she ne'er expected. She belongs to a Whatsapp radical of respective 100 parents, is reaching retired to her MPP, and is attending consultations and trustee meetings.

Everyone agrees with the overarching principles, Lewis said, but the bound changes made truthful small sense, 1 parent asked astatine a caller consultation if artificial quality had been used.

"I consciousness similar our children are being treated arsenic numbers," Lewis said. "There's small respect to however families will negociate the logistics of their days oregon however children's intelligence wellness is being affected."

Rather than stroke up each schoolhouse communities city-wide, Lewis said the committee should walk wealth to adhd resources and renovate schools similar adjacent Dunlop Public School, an English-only schoolhouse successful South Keys that's at 34 per cent capacity. Parents would past take to nonstop their kids there, she said.

But successful trying to make equity, the committee is creating different inequities, she said. Roberta Bondar hosts a well-established meal programme and has galore families connected debased incomes, she pointed out. They won't ain vehicles oregon person flexible jobs to instrumentality their children to schools further away.

Meanwhile, Lewis said parent advocates are trying to poke holes successful the board's methodology. The OCDSB had closed schools in 2017 based successful portion connected probe that showed mediate schools were not the astir effectual configuration.

Lewis wants to spot the grounds for what the committee is doing now.

"They consulted on the ideology of the plan, but they didn't consult connected the origin and effect of the plan," she said. "And that's wherever I deliberation we've mislaid a batch of spot successful the board."

Call to hold vote

Already, the acquisition manager has decided to revisit immoderate of the astir contentious bound changes.

Buffone told CBC News helium has asked planners to instrumentality yet different look astatine the configurations wherever a junior kindergarten to Grade 3 schoolhouse would be partnered with a 2nd schoolhouse offering lone Grades 4 to 8.

The OCDSB has much consultations and meetings planned — but parents are organizing their ain protests.

Lewis said, ultimately, parents privation trustees to delay approving the program connected April 29 and instrumentality much clip fixed the ramifications for truthful galore families.

"Let's beryllium down and speech astir what we tin bash to execute what everyone wants," she said.

But fixed it's already registration time, immoderate parents are opting not to nonstop their four-year-olds to 1 school, lone to beryllium transferred to a antithetic OCDSB schoolhouse for elder kindergarten.

A fewer are switching boards.

That could origin different problems for Ottawa's biggest schoolhouse board. Its enrolment is stagnant, portion the 3 others successful Ottawa are seeing their numbers grow.

But Buffone said the OCDSB volition beryllium connected acold amended footing semipermanent if it tin connection programs parents privation successful each school, particularly French immersion. He said he's unfastened to the feedback that's coming in.

"It's a hard transition, but it's gathering blocks for a brighter future," Buffone said.