Please note, this draft policy was presented to the Governance and Policy Committee on April 27, and is to be reviewed by the Board of Trustees at their next regular Board Meeting on May 25, 2022.
As part of the Secondary Program Review, modifications and updates to current policies and procedures are required to ensure they align with the goals of accessibility of the review.
A review of the Optional Attendance Policy (P013) and its procedures (PR545 and PR612) started in September 2019. This policy allows students to apply to schools other than their designated school by home address. This is possible because there is excess capacity at some schools across the system. However, optional attendance has prevented equity of access and created an imbalance of enrolment in our secondary schools (under and over-utilized schools). It has also created an environment where schools are forced to compete with each other to attract more students in hopes of increasing their enrolment.
A public consultation process began in November 2019 and ended February 2020. The consultation process included聽four public meetings, an online survey on a draft policy and two virtual meetings.
In April 2022,聽there was presentation of the findings聽and the policy will be presented to the Governance and Policy Committee. The revised policy will be considered by the Board on May 20, 2022.