By Gord Bowes, News staff

A public school trustee is crying foul over the timing of changes allowing some Stoney Creek high school students to attend Saltfleet next fall rather than Sherwood.
Parents of children graduating from Billy Green elementary may be happy to attend a closer school, but making changes which affect enrolment during the current high school closure review doesn’t make sense, says trustee Laura Peddle.
She said the move puts another nail in Sherwood’s coffin because it will lower enrolment and further staff’s case that the Ward 6 high school should be closed.
“This is just wrong,” the east Mountain trustee said. “They have predetermined everything.”
Peddle said changing the out-of-catchment rule skirts around a ban on boundary changes during the closure review.
Ken Bain, the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board’s associate director, said the Billy Green school council asked for a boundary review. He said he originally turned down the request because of the current high school closure process, but it was eventually determined Saltfleet could handle up to 50 out-of-catchment students.
“I recognize the optics,” Bain said of Peddle’s comment. “I see it as being responsive to a school community.”
Enrolment at Saltfleet this fall is projected to be 1,165, Bain said. On Oct. 31, 2009, the school had 1,256 students. The same day a year later, there were 1,194, and on Oct. 31, 2011 there were 1,220.
There are currently 12 portables at Saltfleet to handle the number of students enrolled; Bain said no determination has been made yet if that many will be needed in the fall.
Bain said each of the board’s 18 high schools are reviewed each year and as a result out-of-catchment rules can change.
This year, Saltfleet, Westdale, Waterdown and Sir Winston Churchill had enrolment restrictions in place.
With the Saltfleet ban lifted, Billy Green graduates — or any other students — will be able to attend Saltfleet rather than Sherwood.
They’ll have to find their own way to Saltfleet, however, as Billy Green is still within Sherwood’s boundaries. Sherwood students will continue to be bused.
Schools that are bursting at the seams generally stop accepting students who don’t live within its boundaries.
Because enrolment at Saltfleet was at more than 115 per cent two years ago, the board announced it and two other similarly overcapacity schools would not be subject to the current review.
Peddle said it didn’t make sense that Saltfleet would be able to accept more students as its enrolment is up over last year.