The faith of nearly half of the elementary students enrolled in the Northeastern Catholic District School Board (NCDSB) is not known, according to a report from the Globe and Mail.
The newspaper learned the information through a freedom of information request looking at the number of non-Catholic children being enrolled in Catholic boards across the province.
For elementary students in the local board, it reveals that the faith of 47 per cent of its students is not known.
NCDSB director of education Tricia Weltz said the information is not verified, however.
“What that means is that through our efforts in the fall to secure up-to-date information about the denomination or the religious practices of our families, we were unable to secure information from many respondents,” she said.
“Though it does look like the percentage is high, we are really quite confident that it actually would not be that high as far as non-Catholics attending our schools.”
She said the freedom of information request was received in July. Because school was not in session at the time, they asked for an extension to provide the information.
Looking back, she said it “probably would have been better to have sought another extension or to have just said ‘I don’t have the information readily available’, which, really, I didn’t.”
Through the requests, she said the board has recognized it doesn’t have practices in place to have access to the information.
One of the requirements to enrol at the school board is a Roman Catholic baptismal certificate.
“So many families don’t have copies of that certificate,” Weltz explained.
For someone who is a non-Catholic ratepayer or has not been baptized into the faith, she said there is process for a potential student.
She explained they meet with the principal and “would have to acknowledge that by coming to a Catholic school that they will participate in the full life of a Catholic school.”
The board has schools in Timmins, Englehart, Cochrane, New Liskeard, Kapuskasing, Cobalt, Iroquois Falls, Kirkland Lake and Moosonee.
In some communities, she noted NCDSB is the only option.
“We’re very welcoming of anybody and we actually appreciate that in some circumstances our school board is the only opportunity for education that people might have in their community,” she said.
The school board is also proud of what it has to offer.
“We’re taking this as an opportunity to just highlight how wonderful the NCDSB is and that there are so many people who want to join our school communities and we think we have such great things to offer any child who comes to us,” Weltz said.
Read the full Globe and Mail story here.
