More than 20% of local Catholic school board students are non-Catholic

Catholic schools across Ontario are increasingly enrolling non-Catholic students as a way of competing with the public system for funding, says a new Globe and Mail report, yet a local official says that trend is not taking hold here.

Michael Nasello, the director of education for the Peterborough Victoria Nothumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board, says non-Catholic students make up roughly 20 per cent of the enrolment in elementary schools across the local board – a statistic that’s been stable for years.

“It’s been hovering around 20 per cent for a long time – it isn’t new,” Nasello said. “We’ve always had (non-Catholic) families that have requested admission, for various reasons.”

For example, Nasello said, a child may have attended a day-care centre attached to a Catholic school and the parents want their child enrolled when they reach kindergarten age.

Some families like a particular program offered only in the Catholic school, Nasello added, or immigrant families that were sponsored by the Catholic community may want their children educated in the separate school system.

In every case, Nasello said, nonCatholics are approaching the local separate board looking to enrol their kids – never the other way around.

“There’s been no recruitment – no attempt to take students from other boards,” he said. “There are uniquenesses to both boards.”

This week, the Globe reported that it had requested, through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, enrolment figures for non-Catholic elementary students for all 29 Ontario English Catholic school boards in the province for the last four years.

The Globe’s analysis shows that the number of non-Catholic students enrolled in Ontario’s Catholic elementary school system has reached 11,000, an increase of 18 per cent over four years.

The Globe also reported that non-Catholics accounted for more than eight per cent of the total student population in Ontario’s separate system in 2016-17.

That’s substantially less than the 20 per cent of non-Catholic students in the local Catholic board.

But Nasello pointed out that the Ontario average of eight per cent non-Catholic students takes into account every separate board in the province - and the proportion of non-Catholic enrolment varies widely from board to board.

For instance, The Globe found that the three largest school boards in the system – all in the GTA – accept no non-Catholic students.

Meanwhile other boards, such as the Northeastern Catholic District School Board in Timmins, were found to have more than 45 per cent non-Catholic students.

The Globe quoted sources as saying that some school boards accept non-Catholic students more often because it draws increased funding in cases where enrolment has plunged and schools are in danger of closing.

As long as the parents direct their taxes to the separate system, the Globe reported, some school boards will accept their kids.

But that’s not true in Peterborough, Nasello said. He said they automatically accept students who have a Catholic baptismal certificate or who have one parent who was baptised Catholic.

If you don’t meet that criteria, he said, the child is put on a waiting list and the eligible students are enrolled first.

Sometimes the board turns away non-Catholic students, Nasello said – they just don’t have the room in some schools to accept everyone who applies. So it’s unfair to compare local schools with those where enrolment is dwindling, he said.

“You can’t paint everyone with the same brush.”