Peterborough City and County Accommodation Planning

A. To support high quality programming for all schools, school boards need to balance enrolment between schools. Some schools have too many students compared to the size of the school building, while other schools have unused space. When a school has too many or too few students, school staffing and program offerings can be challenging. 

School board administration has created this Background Study with student enrolment, school space available, and existing attendance boundaries for all schools in Peterborough City and County. 

A. This planning process looks at four types of changes to move students from crowded schools into schools that have extra space:

1)    Boundary changes – school boundaries determine which school students will attend, depending on their address. When boundaries are adjusted, some students will be directed to a different school.

2)    Family of School grouping changes – Family of school groupings determine which secondary school students will attend, based on their elementary school. When school groupings change, elementary schools may feed into different secondary schools.

3)    Grade or Cohort changes – To address overcrowding in one school and extra space in another, one grade or several grades may be identified to attend a different school. For example, a crowded Kindergarten to Grade 8 school could become Kindergarten to Grade 6 instead.

4)    Program changes – programs such as French Immersion, accommodate students from multiple schools. To balance student numbers, and meet student needs, the regional locations for French Immersion can be reviewed.

A. The approved accommodation strategies will begin to be implemented in September 2025.

Once final decisions are made, transition plans will be developed to identify how changes will be phased in.

A. We are inviting feedback from families and school communities. We recognize that change can be difficult, but the current situation is not sustainable. We have to make changes in order to balance enrolment in City and County schools.          

In addition to proposing strategies that balance enrolment among schools, our priority is to provide high quality learning conditions and opportunities for ALL students.

Other guiding principles include creating long-term sustainable plans, maintaining walkable routes to schools, and maintaining or streamlining transportation routes. 

A. Some school sites can’t accommodate additional portables, and there are sometimes significant infrastructure costs in setting up new portables (hydro, water, etc.). There is also limited availability for portables at this time.

A. The province will not provide funding for new schools or additions unless existing school spaces nearby are fully used. School boards must use strategies to try and balance enrolment in local schools, before they will be approved for funding for additions or new schools.

A. The planning Concepts propose various Family of School changes at the secondary and intermediate level. These would be phased-in, beginning September 2025. These concepts do not propose moving existing intermediate and secondary students at this time, as a result of Family of School changes. New school registrations would attend the designated school as of September 2025.

A.  Once final decisions are made, students will move to their new schools, as identified through the transition planning process timelines. Requests for students to attend a different school would be handled as a student transfer request, in accordance with BA-7.1.2 Student Transfers and would be reviewed on a case-by-case and space-available basis.