KITCHENER - Families and planners agree Kitchener needs another high school for its growing suburbs.

But after the province failed to approve funding for a new school, the public school board is shuffling future students among three high schools to balance overcrowding.

Boundary revisions will put some incoming students into high schools they didn't expect to attend. Some will now ride buses instead of walking. Others will walk rather than ride buses.

Some parents worry because more students must now walk the bridge across Highway 7/8 at Fischer-Hallman Road.

"This boundary change will help to balance our enrolment at the affected secondary schools as we continue to seek funding to build an additional school," said Jayne Herring, chair of the Waterloo Region District School Board.

The changes "will be uncomfortable for affected families" based on public feedback, trustees were told.

"It was a huge disappointment to hear that the long-promised new secondary school has been pushed to the back burner," one person told the board, in submitting feedback.

Another person wrote "there needs to be a higher priority placed on building a new secondary school in the southwest end of Kitchener ... The board needs to do a better job of planning."

Planners have concluded "there is a strong desire within the community for a new secondary school."

Boundary revisions, guided partly by parents and students, shuffle future students among Forest Heights Collegiate, Huron Heights Secondary School, and Cameron Heights Collegiate. Students already in high school are unaffected.

Huron Heights had been heading toward almost 600 excess students by September. It is adding portable classrooms while crowds strain its narrow hallways and cafeteria.

Changes endorsed Nov. 18 will reduce the overload to 300 excess students in September. By 2028 when all three high schools are overcrowded, Huron Heights will still be the most crowded at 360 students over capacity.

Planners warn that a new high school remains a decade away. Kitchener may need a second new high school. But governments have not settled on a location or funding despite years of planning.

One site was abandoned after urban planners put it outside a countryside line that limits suburban sprawl. Another site was ruled out by city hall and the school board.

After the Ministry of Education refused three times to pay for a new high school, trustees stopped asking, unable to meet a construction deadline without a location in hand.

jouthit@therecord.com

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