AMSCAAR - Questions & Answers

Question #15: What building years were looked at by the municipality in order to project the new developments that may be incoming?

Response: TVDSB receives Planning Act applications from municipalities across the district that inform our enrolment projections. We use student yield values from historic data (pre-, during, and post-pandemic) as well as student yields from current developments to project how many students will result from any given project. We update our enrolment projections on an ongoing basis to account for changes in trends.

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Question #14: When making projections is there consideration for students who might normally attend Separate schools or French Immersion Schools to make the change over to the newly built school? Is there any evidence of this happening with past AARCs?

Response: We can only build enrolment projections off of the students who are attending Thames Valley schools and ones who may be generated by new housing development. It is hard to predict what decision existing families attending other boards or separate schools will make when a new local school is opened. Board share, or the proportion of students in an area that attend Thames Valley, is considered when building enrolment projections, but this value is determined based on historic enrolment data.

TVDSB has completed several attendance area reviews involving new schools but these schools have yet to open, therefore we will not know their impact until after the 2025/2026 school year.

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Question #13: Does the board have data or studies on the impacts of moving schools on children's development and their mental health? More specifically, information from the post COVID era?

Response: In the year before the boundary changes take effect, school transition committees are established which include parents/caregivers and administrators of the sending and receiving schools to develop strategies to ensure that there is a smooth transition to the new schools for both students and families. However, TVDSB has not conducted a study related to students moving schools post COVID. 

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Question #12: Can you provide a link to your board survey on student mental health from 2023 or 2024?

Response: Thames Valley DSB conducts a school climate survey every two years, as mandated by the Ministry of Education. The survey, which must be voluntary and anonymous, includes questions related to perceptions of engagement, safety, and the school environment. Click here to read the 2022-2023 student school climate survey report, which includes a summary of district results and the questions posed to students.

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Question #11: Can you please provide the number of children that have left Caradoc North for the years of 2021-2024?

Response: The following table summarizes students lost year over year between grades, overall growth at the school which offsets the loss (contributing to the overall trend of enrolment growth), and the number of grade 8 students who graduated each year.

Caradoc North Public School

Year	# of Students Lost in Previous Year	Enrolment Increase from Previous Year	# of Grade 8s Graduating
2021	4	10	24
2022	1	26	21
2023	7	7	22
2024	8	-3	14

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Question #10: What is the board's stance on the negative mental health impacts of moving schools and uprooting students from their social connections and school community?

Response: In the year before the boundary changes take effect, school transition committees are established which include parents/caregivers and administrators of the sending and receiving schools to develop strategies to ensure that there is a smooth transition to the new schools for both students and families. 

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Question #9 : Will learning programs such as speech pathologists and history, etc. be seamlessly transitioned to the new schools?

Response: Yes. 

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Question #8 : If this change is implemented, what plans are there for school orientation for children and families ahead of the Sept. 2026 start date?

Response: In the year before the boundary changes take effect, school transition committees are established which include parents/caregivers and administrators of the sending and receiving schools to develop strategies to ensure that there is a smooth transition to the new schools for both students and families. 

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Question #7: What will happen to before and after school programs? Is it a good idea to invite a representative from the Y program management team?

Response: Once a decision has been made, the operators of the before and after school programs will be notified (a year in advance) in order to gather information on the needs of the schools and then to plan accordingly. 

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Question #6: Will schools be given extra supports to help with social skill building in order to be inclusive and accepting of new students?

Response: In the spring of the year before the September implementation of the boundary changes, school level transition committees will be established comprised of the parents/caregivers and school staff of both the sending and receiving schools to develop strategies to support the transition of the students. 

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Question #5:  If subcommittees want data, statistics and numbers for our schools, how would we get that information?

Answer: Thames Valley staff are happy to provide that information at any time. Subcommittees are welcome to put together a list of questions and send them to us through AMSCAAR@tvdsb.ca or the website that has been established for the review (www.tvdsb.ca/AMSCAAR). Answers will be distributed to all subcommittees.

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Question #4: Is there a designated number of homes that would need to be added into an area (for example, North Meadows) to trigger a new public school? 

Answer: A request for a new elementary school wouldn’t be based on the number of homes added to an area, but instead we’d based this on the number of students that would come from new housing developments and enrolment growth from the existing community. Based on our current enrolment projections, based on planned new housing, we think this area will need a new elementary school in the 2030s. However, we keep a close eye on development activity so if this situation changes, we’ll put in a request for a new school to the Ministry of Education.

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Question #3: All students currently enrolled at Adelaide will not be affected by any boundary changes that may happen, regardless if a new school will be built. If this is the case, in what year of enrolment would this change?

Response: No current students will be impacted at Adelaide WG MacDonald. Based on our current thinking and enrolment projections, Adelaide WG MacDonald students would not be impacted until approximately 2036. This timing could change by a couple of years if housing development progresses quicker than we would expect or if the Ministry of Education takes more or less time to approve the business case for new school funding.

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