Caught between one suggestion from a committee tasked with studying school boundaries in southeast Kitchener and another idea from school board employees, Catholic trustees instead decided to stake out their own path.
Trustees made their decision Monday night, voting 6-3 in favour of maintaining the status quo at St. Daniel Catholic Elementary School and St. John Paul II Catholic Elementary School.
Staff at the Waterloo Catholic District School Board had recommended alleviating pressure at St. John Paul II by moving students from the Chicopee neighbourhood to St. Daniel.
That proposal met resistance from parents, who said they didn’t want the community they’d build earlier this decade to be split up.
Following Monday’s vote, parent Kristiina Montero said she was happy trustees had listened to the community’s concerns.
“I’m happy that we all stood together … and now we get to stay together,” she said, adding that she felt “blindsided” by the initial proposal to move some students.
Monday’s decision isn’t a complete reprieve for students currently attending the over-capacity St. John Paul II.
School board officials will watch enrollment closely over the next few years, and may propose changes to the area’s school boundaries in the future.
At the start of the current school year, St. John Paul was about 120 students above the 611 it was built to house.
