Plan to move students scrapped as enrolment holds steady downtown

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The region’s largest school board is walking back a plan to relocate more than 100 Old North pupils after predictions of a spike in the number of students downtown failed to materialize.

“The yield we were expecting out of high-density development in the downtown” was not accurate, said Geoff Vogt, superintendent of facility services and capital planning. “We do not need to move those students.”

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In June 2022, trustees approved a motion to move 121 students in 2025 to Old North elementary school on Waterloo St. to relieve crowded Sir Georges Etienne Cartier elementary school – on Chiddington Street in south London – of its enrolment pressures after the opening of a new elementary school in northwest London, said Ben Puzanov, manager of planning.

The elementary school on Fair Oaks Boulevard is expected to open in 2025-26.

Moving the pupils was part of a plan to change where some Thames Valley District school board students attend class in London, a key step toward getting money for a badly needed new high school in the city.

The rejig was a necessary move to fix enrolment imbalances – some schools are bursting while others are under capacity – which Queen’s Park requires before funding new schools.

Administration has been monitoring enrolment at both schools, Puzonov said.

“The students expected  . . . in downtown London have not substantiated at the levels expected,” he said.

Cartier has a capacity of about 300 pupils and fall enrolment turned out to be 279, Puzanov said.

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Old North has room for 438 pupils, and has about 460, he said.

“As a result of current and projected enrolment levels, it is recommended that the attendance area change between St. George’s  and Old North not be made,”  Puzanov said.

In September, about 600 fewer students than the board expected showed up to its schools, trustees learned at a board committee meeting earlier this month.

Because boards are funded on a per-student basis and it already had offered contracts to teachers for its projected enrolment, the overestimation cost the board $6.4 million, according to its finance officials.

Sandra Macey, manager of financial services for the Thames Valley board, told trustees at the committee meeting enrolment at the board’s elementary schools in September was 257 students fewer than the board forecast. High school enrolment was down 330 students from the board’s projections, she said.

“Enrolment has increased year over year, but by a smaller margin than predicted,” Macey said. “Budget reduction strategies will be reviewed to offset the expected increase in this deficit.

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The board already slashed its 2024-25 budget by $11 million in June through cuts that included 58 elementary and 24 high school teaching positions, along with 17 early childhood educator jobs and four positions in speech and psychological services.

Last month, associate director Karen Wilkinson said the board also was losing students due to “a retention issue” between Grade 8 to Grade 9.

“As a board, we must be very cautious about what we are doing as far as secondary programming,” she said. “It’s a critical time. You have to realize that kids have opportunities outside of Thames Valley. And we don’t want them leaving Thames Valley.”

Total enrolment figures were not shared at the meeting, but in the board’s 2024-25 budget approved in June, staff forecast enrolment at the elementary level would decrease by more than 400 pupils in September and increase at the high school level by about 90 students. Total enrolment was projected to be 84,112 students at the board’s 158 schools.

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