By Joel Kom
Most teenagers wouldn’t be caught dead near school on a weekend.
But the group of six teenagers camped outside Lisgar Collegiate from Jan. 28 to 31 had no intention of budging from their camping chairs parked next to the school’s main doors.
They, and a steady number of 50 adults, braved the sub-zero temperatures in the hopes of grabbing one of the 30 spots available for the next school year to students who don’t live in the Lisgar boundary.
The cold but chatty teenagers were quick to emphasize that they would only spend a weekend under sleeping bags and blankets for a spot in Lisgar and nothing else — not a concert, movie or autograph session.
“School lasts for four years,” says Vince, 13. “A concert lasts for four hours.”
The others nodded in agreement. “It’s supposed to be an academic school, plus it has a good music program,” adds Edward, also 13.
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board started an open boundary policy two years ago, allowing students to apply to any school in the board’s area regardless of where they lived.
But the number of transfer spots available at Lisgar, which holds about 1,000 students, has dropped from 90 two years ago to 60 last year to just 30 this year.
Centretown Trustee Joan Spice says the number of spots fell because enrolment from students living in the Lisgar boundary has increased.
That means there are fewer desks available for students from other boundaries, since students living in the Lisgar area get first priority.
There will be an added demand for those 30 spots because two Ottawa high schools, J.S. Woodsworth and Laurentian, are closing.
Students from those schools get the first crack at the transfer spots, even if their families didn’t join the camp-out with the others.
“These students are losing their schools for the good of the system, so they get priority,” says Lisgar principal Pat Irving.
Irving says about four students from these schools have applied so far but she expects more will apply.
Irving and Spice say people were willing to spend a weekend outside the school for a variety of reasons.
Lisgar is one of only two public high schools in the city to offer a string music program and one of six to run a gifted program, and its location behind city hall on Lisgar Street is also convenient for co-op placements at downtown businesses.
The parents camped outside certainly believe in the school. Peter Wilson, who already has a daughter in Grade 11 at Lisgar, is hoping to get his son in too. He says Lisgar gives its students a strong education.
“Lisgar has a reputation of being a very good academic school,” he says. “My experience with my daughter would support that.”
Elaine Wong got No. 7 on the sing-up list. She says “this is a good school: good teachers, good students who are all eager to learn.”
“They’re all really prepared for university.”
Most camped out in shifts, rotating every eight hours or so. The crowd huddled around a propane heater and drank coffee and hot chocolate to keep warm while they waited for the school to open on Monday morning.
Irving says 93 people signed up for the 30 transfer spots within an hour of the school opening. She agrees camping out in the winter cold seems a bit extreme, but she notes that parents agreed to the first-come, first-serve system.
Spice says other ways of handling the transfers, such as a lottery system, will be discussed for the 2006-2007 school year. She added that the board’s enrolment projections point to a slight increase in the number of spots available over the next few years.