Upper Stoney Creek’s Gatestone Elementary School will extend its catchment boundary south of Rymal Road for this September to help relieve overcrowding at Shannen Koostachin Elementary School.
Upper Stoney Creek’s Gatestone Elementary School will extend its catchment boundary south of Rymal Road for this September to help relieve overcrowding at Shannen Koostachin Elementary School.
A boundary review is expanding the catchment area for upper Stoney Creek’s Gatestone Elementary School this September to help relieve overcrowding at Shannen Koostachin Elementary School.
More than 120 students in kindergarten to Grade 5 will be redirected to Gatestone by a revised boundary that now extends south of Rymal Road to an area generally bounded by Rocklege Drive, Dolomiti Court, Dalgleish Trail and Highway 56.
Grades 6 and 7 students in the expanded boundary area will be allowed to continue attending Koostachin until they graduate the school, but their younger siblings will switch to Gatestone and be eligible to be bused there.
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The new boundary attempts to balance enrolments between the two schools, senior facilities manager David Anderson told trustees, who unanimously approved the change at their Feb. 20 finance and facilities committee meeting.
Gatestone presently has 521 students, about 10 per cent below a 582 capacity, a number projected to drop by more than 40 students by 2028 without the boundary change, while Koostachin has 835 students, nearly 40 per cent above a 599 capacity.
The boundary change is projected to boost Gatestone enrolment to 643 this September, adding three portable classrooms, and lower Koostachin’s enrolment to 721, reducing the current nine portables to three or four.
Anderson said Gatestone’s enrolment is expected hold steady at about 10 per cent above capacity, but Koostachin’s will keep growing, including because it is a holding school for students south of Binbrook Road who have been redirected there from Bellmoore until the board can open a second school in their area.
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The Ministry of Education approved a $13.5-million grant in July 2020 to build the 615-student school but the board has been unable to buy the designated site because it has yet to be registered as part of a subdivision plan for the area.
Koostachin presently has 194 Binbrook students, a number projected to grow to 345 by 2028, increasing its total enrolment to 879 by then. A staff report states the new school is expected to be built by the 2027-28 or 2028-29 school year.
Accommodation planning manager Ellen Warling said although the second Binbrook school will cut Koostachin’s enrolment from that area, new homes planned near the Bellagio Avenue school will still likely keep it at or above capacity.
Trustees praised the boundary solution, which follows a review that included input from an advisory panel of school representatives, a public meeting at Gatestone and two meetings with affected Koostachin families.
“You’re utilizing Gatestone very well, you’re trying to relieve the other schools, you’re waiting for that new school to be built; it seems that everything is slowly falling into place,” trustee Todd White said.
“But the real piece that takes the pressure off is the building of the new school in Binbrook,” he said. “Hence, why it’s important that that new school be built, which I know there isn’t a soul on this planet that disagrees with that.”
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