From the Calgary Public School Board website.
"IMPORTANT: School designations are based on physical street boundaries. Please confirm your designated school and space availability. To do this, call the school or Public Information Line at (403) 294-8255."

It's in red on the website, the underline I added for emphasis.

I believe there were cases a number of years ago were people moved into a neighborhood directly across the street from a school only to find the school was beyond its capacity, children were already being bussed to another school and their children were also bussed out.

I don't think this is still the case.

It would appear that a lot of elementary schools have been split into K - 3 and 4 - 6. For example the Hamptons area The Hamptons elementary is Kindergarten to Grade 3 then for Grades 4 to 6 the children are bussed to Captain John Palliser which is in Brentwood.

Community Districts and Designated Schools for the 2006 - 2007 School Year Regular Program.
http://www.cbe.ab.ca/schools/2006-20...S-REG-LIST.pdf

Community Districts and Designated Schools for the 2006 - 2007 School Year French Immersion Program.
http://www.cbe.ab.ca/schools/2006-20...-FRIM-LIST.pdf


Cheers
Steve

Thanks for correcting my lazy posting, Steve.

What I meant was that the public school system always accepts a child. It never turns anyone away.

Also, as far as I know, it assigns the newly arrived child to the school that all of the other children on his/her street or his/her section of the neighbourhood attend.

The newly arrived child, to the best of my knowledge, is not bussed to a school in another neighbourhood on his/her own.

Rather, if a school gets overcrowded, a whole section of a neighbourhood will be re-assigned to a school in another neighbourhood. Some street or other will be designated as the cut off point. Children to the west of that street will go to one school, and children to the east of that street will go to another school. Of course in other cases the road that forms the new boundary divides a neighbourhood along north / south lines.

Another strategy, as you have stated, is to designate some schools as Kindergarten to Grade 3 and others as Grade 4 - 6.

So my understanding is that a child always is accepted at the school that is the DESIGNATED school for his/her residential area, but that designated school may not be physically located in his/her residential area.

That said, I believe school bussing of elementary (junior) school children usually happens in newer communities on the outer fringes of the city. They are the communities that tend to attract families with young children. Because Calgary is in catch up mode as far as infrastructure is concerned, the new communities on the outer fringes also tend to be the ones that do not yet have schools. So that exacerbates the problem.

From what I've heard, bussing children to schools outside of their residential areas is far less common in the close-in neighbourhoods that are older and more established.

I believe the School Board's caveat about space availability applies if a child moves to Calgary when the academic year already is underway. There may be instances, but I believe they are rare, in which a child will be transported to a school outside of his/her neighbourhood on his/her own. After the end of one academic year and before the start of another academic year, the School Board tries to re-align school intake boundaries to avoid that situation.

It would appear that the "new norm" might be Kindergarten to Grade 4, at least in the newer areas.

That is what Tuscany and most likely others are moving to and if you noticed this is basically all we in Calgary are getting in the new "public" schools announced last week by our esteemed Education Minister.

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/GIS.Se...&brand=generic

Some of the close-in neighborhoods will start to see their children bussed out in coming years if this is not already happening as the Calgary Board is forced to close some of these schools due to lack of enrollment.