The Greater Victoria School Board voted to change its school placement policies because of rising enrolment in the district.

The new policy favours students within a school's catchment area.

Previously, students in the district could usually attend the school of their choice, explained school board vice chair Tom Ferris.

"The district had been in declining enrolment situation for quite a number of years and that meant that we had room in all of our schools and so if people chose to go to a different school than their neighbourhood school, there was always an opening for them," he said.

"Today, 30 per cent of our students actually go to a school that is not in their catchment area."

Over the past 3 years, however, enrolment has increased.

That, coupled with a Supreme Court ruling restricting class size, means schools are filling up quickly.

"We had to do something," Ferris said.

The new order of priority will apply to new registrations, transfer requests, and student transitions between different school levels (elementary to middle school, for example).

Students currently in non-catchment schools will not be affected, Ferris said.

The priority, which will take effect for the 2018 — 2019 school year, will be as follows:

Returning students. A catchment area sibling. A catchment area child. A non-catchment sibling. A non-catchment child. A non-school district child.

Ferris says the point of the policy is not to disadvantage any student, and he says the policy will help develop a sense of community.

"To me, in many ways, this is a good news story," he said.

"For a long time I saw people going off to schools all over the district ... [but now] neighbourhood schools will be attracting kids in their neighbourhood."

With files from CBC's On the Island