Battleford Catholic school is an ‘anomaly’

One elementary school in Saskatchewan will be allowed to continue blocking non-Catholic students from attending, even though it is funded by the public school system.

St. Vital Catholic School in Battleford is part of the public Living Sky School Division (LSSD), but it’s run on Catholic principles.

For example, a priest is involved in the teacher hiring process and students are required to have been baptized in the Catholic faith or to be willing to become Catholic to attend the school. It’s been doing things this way for more than a century.

“Although the school is administered by the public school division, it is not a public school. It’s a Catholic school,” said Jim Shevchuk, superintendent in charge of St. Vital.

“They were the public school originally ... so (maintaining the Catholic rules) is more of a historic thing. In 1931 they changed it from the Catholic Public School District #11 to the St. Vital Separate School District because up until that time they were, in Battleford, the majority faith,” he said.

The school was originally opened in 1878 by a missionary to educate the area’s Catholic Metis children. It continued to grow, and in 1914 a new three-storey brick building, which still stands as the Fred Light Museum, was built to house the school’s growing population.

The school district was changed somewhat in 1931, but the biggest change took place in 1961, when the school officially joined the public district. During school board amalgamations in 1997 and 2007, the school had the option to join the Catholic Light of Christ division, but stakeholders decided it should remain part of the public system.

Shevchuk said the decision to only admit Catholic students is also a way of “respecting the law” — the same law that caused Justice Donald Layha to rule that providing government funding for nonminority faith students attending separate schools infringes on religious neutrality and equality rights.

When a Saskatoon StarPhoenix reporter spoke with Education Minister Don Morgan, he initially said he wasn’t aware that St. Vital blocks non-Catholic students from attending. Morgan said as a result of amalgamations within the districts, the Ministry of Education has never raised any issue with Catholic schools over whether or not they should require proof of a student’s faith.

In the case of St. Vital, the school’s policies were simply grandfathered in when they joined the public school system in 1961. Morgan called that an “anomaly.”

In his experience, the government has never “challenged, questioned or asked them to do anything different,” Morgan said, adding it would be very unlikely that the government would step in, even if parents complained.

Premier Brad Wall announced his intention this week to use the notwithstanding clause to Layha’s court decision, which would strip government funding from non-Catholic children attending Catholic schools.

The notwithstanding clause allows the government to override portions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for five years.

If the case were to make it to the Supreme Court of Canada and the decision was upheld, Morgan said the government would consult with St. Vital stakeholders to determine what should be done.

“We would probably say to the school, ‘You have to make a choice.’ If the ruling stands, then they would have to join with a Catholic division ... That would be an option for them, or they could choose to be a public school and comply with the ruling and open the doors to anybody,” he said..

“And then they would also have to stop being a faith-based school.”