A recent report from the Globe and Mail has stated that the religious beliefs of nearly 50 per cent of Northeastern Catholic District School Board’s elementary students are unknown.
The study comes from a deeper look into how Ontario Catholic school boards are enrolling more non-Catholic students in order to stay afloat in the battle for provincial funding.
The NCDSB was one of the boards mentioned in the report, and Director of Education Tricia Stefanic Weltz told the Globe and Mail one reason for the outcome was school staff were unable to reach parents or those parents were unwilling to disclose their child’s faith.
Community Relations Officer for NCDSB Andrew Marks says the board is absolutely striving to enroll all Catholic students within the area.
Marks says the NCDSB is trying to clean-up their process for collecting data on students so this will not happen again.
He says the numbers are not quite fair, given the timing of the Globe and Mail’s Freedom of Information request which was done in July.
Marks also says the NCDSB has always been a catholic school board and has never intentionally enrolled any students for the benefit of further funding.
