I know of several non-Catholic families that have sent their children the Catholic elementary schools. All is needed, is to consent to the religion classes, and to participate in school events that are Catholic in nature. These children are now Catholics, even though the parents have never been converted. The same parents go to the Catholic church, with their children every Sunday. The families were dissatisfied with the public schools, but could not afford private schooling.

BTW the public schools have far more catholics who have chosen public over catholic than the other way around.

So they are both in decline as your post says so there is no significant transfer to the catholic system.

Can`t be true Doug-Malkin wouldn`t have the post if it were.

Are you worried about this site or something?

We must be a real threat!

All is needed, is to consent to the religion classes, and to participate in school events that are Catholic in nature

No.

This is quite incorrect. At the elementary level, only baptized Catholic students or children of Catholics are eligible to enroll.  Many Orthodox families from Russia, Serbia, Romania and elsewhere have tried to enroll their children in atholic elementaries but have not been successful.  The Dufferin-Peel CDSB even has a policy statement about Orthodox children’s eligibility.
http://www.dpcdsb.org/NR/rdonlyres/D3C378AF-232D-4CAE-8835-B87BDACADEC5/47381/110Admissions.pdf

TCDSB will now allow children of Catholics (who are not themselves Catholic) to enroll but this is a recent change.
http://www.tcdsb.org/admissions/default.htm

York Catholic DSB has similar requirements:
http://www.ycdsb.ca/departments/Admissions/default.htm#elementary

Requirements for staff are even more rigorous. They must produce not only baptismal certificates but proof of active Catholic practice.

It’s true that many Catholic families enroll their children in public schools. But, if the kids are troublemakers or need Special Ed, we suggest to the parents that they take their child to a Catholc school  

Interestingly, when we have done that, the kids have gone to a Catholic school and done pretty well—better than they did with us.

Doug, good to see you’re still around.  I thought you might have gone down to the Rogers Center to rattle the fence! (so much for wishful thinking!)

Seriously, two of us have already told you about significant numbers transferring from public to catholic.  That is two out of how many Catholic boards? In fact, I believe that the BGCDSB reported that they had no drop in numbers at all - therefore ...

A huge percent of TDSB are catholics. Same with most public boards.

tdsbnw:

I don’t know if there is a difference between official policy and practice in the schools; or if policies are changing.  However (and I hate to admit this) when we were looking to enroll my son in JK, my wife first went to the Catholic school in town.  Her cousin sent her children there and she wanted the kids to go to school together.  She was only ever asked one question, “What is your primary role as a parent?”  If she answered that question correctly, our child could go to that school.  We eventually decided on the public school.

BTW:  The correct answer?  “To raise my children in the catholic faith.”

Even some Somali parents have told me they are planning to send their kids to Catholic secondary schools. These are devout Muslim families, but they feel that the Catholic schools will be more supportive of their values than a secular high school would be.  So it may well be that although elementary numbers decline (because of smaller Catholic families), secondary numbers will go up.

Catholic elementaries are picking up their share of the immigration from Central and South America. We have significant numbers from Colombia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua , and even Uruguay.  Most of these are Catholics and Spanish-speaking. They find more support in the Catholic system.

Doug,

Please back up that claim with real support.  Otherwise you ought to retract it - it doesn’t make any sense.

A huge percent of TDSB are catholics

Not any more. The TDSB will be majority Muslim in a few years.Hindu and Buddhist are well represented.

Nobody said majority but there are thousands of catholics in TDSB Peel York and most boards in Ontario. Former TBE director used to say even after the extension. If the catholics ever left the public schools we would need to close 20 schools.

One wonders if it were ever the case:

“Mulligan (1999) quotes an Ontario Catholic school chaplain who says, “It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to maintain, let alone deepen, the Catholic character of the school with ... a large [32%] non-Catholic population” (p. 182).”

This quote from a 2007 article, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6936/is_3_10/ai_n28544216/.

Although it was very easy to find this article talking about non-catholic students in catholic schools, I am having trouble finding the reverse.  Maybe it doesn’t exist.  I’ll keep digging.

I will bet anyone on this board that for every non catholic in the catholic board there are 10 cathilics in public schools.

To TDSBNW:  I was just as surprise, and did indeed asked how?  It took place in Southern Ontario, but far away from Toronto, and the Metro area. I also seen it when I was living in Mississauga in the 1980s.

“The elementary schools of the Niagara Catholic District School Board exist primarily to provide excellence in Catholic education for the pupils of our Separate School Supporters. Pupils of Non-Separate School Supporters may be admitted to an elementary school upon application. “
http://www.niagararc.com/

This exists probably in rural areas as well. I know the 4th time I encounter it, the parent had to drive the child to a Catholic school, until there was an opening closer to where they lived. Also I have relatives in Ontario, who have children attending Catholic schools, and the parents are not Catholic.

I suppose it is the application form, and what the parents are consenting to. The talk went away from that, to how ironic it was that they are sending their kids to a Catholic school, and how they teased me about my own Catholic background.

In my area the Catholic system will accept non-catholic students. It is understood by the parents(also not-catholic) that if the school becomes full to capacity and they need space the non-Catholic student would leave in favour of the Catholic student.

It’s not the same in all parts of the province tdsbsw - especially when both are competing for students.

Great post Malkin! Facts have a way of flustering Doug. Keep’em coming.

I will bet anyone on this board that for every non catholic in the catholic board there are 10 cathilics in public schools.

For every non-Catholic in the TCDSB there are 1000 + Catholics in the TDSB, because the TCDSB does not admit elementary kids of non-Catholic parents.

I think, however, I could count the Catholic kids in my school 0f 700+ on the fingers of one hand. We have Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Orthodox. No Jewish kids, either.

I wonder once you move outside the Toronto area, are the Catholic schools more populated than the public schools?  Another question I have, how many Catholic schools closed since 1995, compared to the public school system?  Just wondering, since many closures of public schools, take place due to declining enrollment, especially in rural areas.

The public schools in the west end of Toronto are full of Italians, Portuguese, Polish and Philipino kids who are catholics. I know it is not the same thing but they tell public school officials of priests coming right to the door to persuade them to switch to the Catholic system. They don’t want to go.

The same is true in Hamilton, Sault Ste Marie, Ottawa, and all over Catholic majority cities in Ontario. It is nothing new.

good questions Nancy re: closure comparisons. Mostly new builds of Catholic schools in my district.

It’s a healthy school system doing something right.

The Catholic system isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

Funny they are closing just as fast as public schools in Toronto. We will see when the dust settles.

http://www.peopleforeducation.com/schoolclosingreport/nov2009

Data is in the appendix at the end of the report. Catholic boards in decline in same areas as public decline. Catholic boards growing in areas public boards are growing. No shift from public to catholic. Debate over.

People for Education data is torqued information and often wrong and embellished.

They are neither experts in demographics or elected representatives of anything but themselves and handy union props.

In fact I have heard of incidents in the past where this organization has allegedly interfered with closings that a school community supported, and were not welcome.

The fact is that inside and out the Catholic system is a much healthier system able to draw students and families who, depending where you live need not be Catholic.

The debate isn’t over until the owners of this blog say it’s over Mr. Little. Want to call the shots, do so on your own website.

Same as Ministry of Education data.

P4E doesn’t equal MOE - never has, never will

“Trustees have told me all-day kindergarten is so popular some Toronto Catholic sites (only a portion of public and Catholic schools have been chosen to offer the program this September) have generated waiting lists of Catholic families whose children are entitled to attend the school. Previously, some might have sent their kids to the public school.

The fact the local Catholic school was chosen for full-day kindergarten this year while the local public school was not gives the Catholic system a competitive advantage in an environment where Catholic schools continue to compete with public ones for Catholic students.

The Catholic board confirms it has waiting lists of entitled families at a few sites. With the early release of next year’s funds, only one school, Holy Child, is still oversubscribed.”

More good news for the Catholic board in Toronto.

Taken from Moira MacDonald’s column in today’s Toronto Sun - linked in the previous thread.

Note also that the ELP in the TDSB is not going well..as expected and as spun right here.

The data is MOE data Chuck, not P4E data.

Gee I though the ELP was supposeto be a disaster everywhere, according to Chuch and John L it was Dalton’s folly or something.

Latest polling shows Hudak stuck at 32% well behind McGuinty.

No Doug, it is not the end of the story. There is more to declining enrollment than birth rate and migration from rural to urban areas. There is migration to other provinces for work, and as well as migration movements of the immigrant population. There is government policies influences and sometimes it has major impact on certain populations, such as rural areas. Than there is other education policies that have been put in place in another era, that have not change as a different set of problems emerge, that were not present in the previous era.

One issue of importance, what are the numbers regarding people who work in other provinces, but the families of the workers remain in Ontario. How many workers work in other provinces, but pay their taxes in Ontario?  This is one of the factors that is being played out in rural NL. Working for 3 to 6 weeks, off for 2 to 3 weeks. The families remain in the small communities, and the income is being spent within the province, and not the province where the person is working. This has help to stabilized populations of small rural communities. I suspect this is happening in rural Ontario, as it is in the Atlantic provinces.

As for the link, it does not state how many schools have closed down.
“Across the province, 172 elementary and secondary schools are closing or recommended to close between 2009 and 2012 — up from 145 in May. A further 163 schools are under review.”

As for the breakdown, it is helpful but it is the future and does not state the schools in question. Not at all helpful, in determining population shifts except that the public school boards are facing many more closures than the Catholic boards. Nor does it tell anyone to be able to state as you did, that there is no shift from public to Catholic. What it did not do, is to have the totals of the population tally, between Catholic and public. The purpose of the study, that school closures were on the rise, and not to determine what type of schools were closing, the whys, and what boards.

the ELP is very much Dalton’s folly. It’s a shell of the full-day K that was promised, so I’d say it’s another McGuinty promise unkept.

That the Catholics are making it work is likely based more on what they put into it than anything that the gov’t has done.

You may have noticed in the same article Doug that contrary to your spin that all is well in the TDSB re: the ELP, the story is more along the lines of what’s happening elsewhere, which is that the ELP is shaping up to be another Liberal boondoggle.

The PCs are exactly where they need considering Hudak hasn’t even begun.

If it makes you feel better to believe that stuff Chuck then you go for it.

There always was going to be a phase in Chuck. You need to read more.

I’d suggest that you spend less time passing judgement on the posters here Doug and telling them what to do and what not to do.

You demonstrate nothing that will help students. You’re retired and you have no influence. Must be tough.

Far more influence now than I ever had at OSSTF as trustee or writing for NOW mag. I write I golf I consult its not so bad.

It’d be useful if someone here could limit himself to posting using one handle, either “Doug”  or “Doug Little”. 

Thanks