With new Stratford high school on horizon, PSB aims to shuffle who goes to 2 city schools
Report's recommendations aim to balance numbers at Charlottetown high schools
P.E.I.'s Public Schools Branch is looking to make changes to where some students will go to high school in the Charlottetown area in the years ahead.
The PSB recently released a report on rezoning students in the capital city in order to prepare for a new high school slated to open across the Hillsborough River in Stratford in just over two years.
More than 600 students from the Stratford and Donagh areas will eventually go there, instead of the two high schools in Charlottetown attended by the current crop of pupils from east of the city.
The schools branch said its proposed zoning changes are a chance to balance the number of students at Charlottetown Rural and Colonel Gray high schools.
If the PSB board of trustees adopts the report's recommendations, the following changes would take effect in September 2027:
- All high school students in the Donagh and Stratford catchment areas would attend Stratford High School for grades 10-12.
- All students who attend Birchwood and Stonepark intermediate schools would attend Charlottetown Rural for grades 10-12.
- All students graduating from Queen Charlotte would attend Colonel Gray for grades 10-12.
- Students completing late French immersion at Birchwood, Queen Charlotte and Stonepark would attend grades 10-12 at the high school designated to their home address.
The changes would mean between 600 and 700 students would attend each of the three high schools.
Keeping the cohorts together
The PSB said its goal is to keep students together as a group from the elementary level through to high school. Students who graduate from Stonepark Intermediate currently split off between the two Charlottetown high schools based on which feeder school they attended.
"By rezoning the Birchwood Intermediate students to Charlottetown Rural and adding the students from Parkdale, Prince Street and St. Jean-Hillsborough, CRHS would gain 208 students to have a total of 689 while Colonel Gray would have 650," the Public Schools Branch report notes.
"These numbers would allow space at both schools for the growing enrolments identified [in] their respective catchment areas."
The zoning for Charlottetown's intermediate and elementary schools will be left as is for now. That's because the P.E.I. government recently approved the construction of a new junior high for Stratford that will eventually require rezoning for those grade levels.
There's currently no timeline for when that new school will be built.
'Makes a lot of sense'
Stratford Mayor Steve Ogden said the schools branch's proposed changes would benefit students and parents in the area.
"It makes sense to have people as close as possible to their educational needs. It saves a lot of greenhouse gases, it'll be more convenient for parents," Ogden said. "It's just better overall for the town and for the students to be not spending as much time as part of the transportation process. I think it makes a lot of sense."
The Public Schools Branch said it's conducting public consultations on the recommendations for both the Charlottetown schools, as well as on another recent report that proposed changes to the Three Oaks family of schools in the Summerside area.
"We encourage all community members to share their perspectives so we can make the best decisions for our students' futures," Stephanie Arnold, chair of the PSB's board of trustees, said in an emailed statement.
There will be a public information session on the Charlottetown recommendations Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Charlottetown Rural.
The Summerside public consultation takes place at Three Oaks Senior High on Thursday, also at 7 p.m.
The consultation period ends June 2, after which the school board trustees will have the final say on both reports.
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With files from Connor Lamont