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Capital's private schools get some attention due to strike

Labour unrest in public schools can turn parents’ eyes to the private system, but it’s hard to put a figure on how many students actually make a change. “We’re seeing more inquiries. I think it opens minds to investigating the option,” said St.
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At St. Michaels University School, spokeswoman Laura Authier says "it feels like we're getting a lot more late-year interest."

Labour unrest in public schools can turn parents’ eyes to the private system, but it’s hard to put a figure on how many students actually make a change.

“We’re seeing more inquiries. I think it opens minds to investigating the option,” said St. Michaels University School spokeswoman Laura Authier.

“It feels like we’re getting a lot more late-year interest.”

But for now, it seems to be a case of “kicking tires” rather than a run on enrolment, Authier said.

As well, any real trend is anecdotal, she said, because the school hasn’t made hard comparisons between this year and last.

For Vancouver Island’s six Catholic independent schools, including St. Patrick’s, St. Joseph’s and St. Andrew’s in Victoria, there has been no effect from ongoing labour issues in public schools, said superintendent Joe Colistro.

B.C.’s public-education system has about 500,000 students in a given year, while independent or private schools serve about 76,000. Overall, the private system accounts for about 12 per cent of student enrolment.

Doug Hamilton, a professor of educational leadership at Royal Roads University, said he has not encountered any research that charts how parents look at educational choices after labour disputes.

“My sense is that in the short term there probably would not be an appreciative difference, because most parents who opt to send their children to independent schools go through a fairly lengthy information-gathering and decision-making process.”

Parent research goes beyond tuition cost, and can include such factors as the availability of specific programs, whether or not a child has to go on a waiting list and how a change would impact a child’s social network.

“It’s such an important decision. It’s the most important decision for many parents that they’ll make during the course of their children’s educational experience,” Hamilton said.

“In terms of whether or not something like the current labour dispute is going to be a significant factor in parents’ decisions over the next few months, I question whether or not it would.” That could change if the labour situation became more protracted, he said.

Regardless, independent schools take a measured approach to adding students, Hamilton said.

“From the perspective of independent schools, their mandate is to balance having successful programs with offering a high quality of program, which means that they have to be really careful about growth in enrolment,” he said.

“They have to spend a lot of time thinking through the process of sustainability, of ensuring that they don’t compromise the expectations of what they offer in the minds of their existing parent community.

“So it’s not taken lightly by any administrators in an independent program about whether to react to something like this [dispute].”

jwbell@timescolonist.com