you are here: home > FAQ > Catholic School in Cornell

Will there be a Catholic School in Cornell?

The answer is "Yes", but the difficulty is when?

I attended a Public Meeting with the York Catholic District School Board and the Cornell Ratepayers Association to shed some light on the subject.

The York Catholic District School Board would desperately like to build an elementary school in Cornell, but they are constrained by the policies of the Ministry of Education of the Province of Ontario.

The Ministry has changed the rules that need to be followed to permit funding for a new school and the transition rules have left the residents in Cornell in a bit of a problem.

The rules are complicated and the team of planners and the local Catholic School Trustee did an admirable job of explaining them to the room full of interested parents.  In general, the Ministry only looks at enrollment numbers of new students that would attend a new school, and that takes into account the enrollment numbers in the surrounding schools.

Currently there are about 240 students enrolled in the Catholic Schools in the east end of Markham that live in Cornell.  The difficulty is that if those students were to be transferred to a new school in Cornell, then the enrollment in the other schools would drop below the number that would keep them viable.  If that happened, the Ministry would be funding a new school in an area that has underutilized schools.

Sounds confusing doesn't it?

The bottom line is that there are not currently enough students enrolled in the Catholic School System who live in Cornell.  This is compounded by the number of Catholic Students who are enrolled in the Public School system because of the convenience.  Each time that happens, it is one less student for the numbers required to build the new school, and it changes the figures that are used to calculate the % of students that will be enrolled in a Catholic School when the new phases of Cornell are built.

I have asked the York Catholic District School Board to send me some specific information on what can be done and I'll post it as soon as it arrives.

 

Top of Page

Welcome

This web site provides a forum where I can bring you up to date on issues and events at the Town of Markham that affect the quality of living in our Ward.

To contact me regarding any issue please click here for the contact page.

Please visit this page to see what some residents of East Markham have to say about John.