Northeast students are taking Catholic option

January 12, 2017 · 0 Comments

In The Auroran dated Thursday, December 22, there was an article eloquently reporting some of the issues in obtaining a high school on the North East Side of Aurora. It mentioned capacity as one of those issues, reporting the combined student body of both Williams and Aurora High School at 87 per cent.
What it failed to report is that 60 per cent of Aurora Bayview North East is leaving the public system to walk to the Catholic one. Yes – 60 per cent.
It also failed to mention that if you totaled high school enrollment numbers for all the schools that service Aurora (Public and Catholic together) capacity reaches closer to 120 per cent.
The issue isn’t that we don’t have enough students for a respectable business plan submission to the Ministry of Education for a new high school. The issue is that the York Region District School Board isn’t servicing Bayview North East appropriately and therefore they can’t keep those students in the Public School Board.

Sandra Manherz
Aurora