The Vancouver School Board says 229 students are wait-listed for Kindergarten at 12 schools in Vancouver. They will all be offered a placement at other Vancouver schools.

More than 200 students are wait-listed for kindergarten at the school in their catchment in Vancouver.

The Vancouver school board Tuesday released the numbers of students who still need to be placed in kindergarten. The VSB says 12 schools are oversubscribed for kindergarten, leaving 229 students without a school in their catchment.

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The VSB says all students registered will be offered placement at a different Vancouver school. But that means many parents will have to drive their kids to school instead of walking them to their classes.

Among those is Brent Toderian, the city’s former chief planner and advocate for living car-free. He and his wife bought a condo across the street from a school so their son could attend school without driving, but they didn’t earn a lottery spot for Kindergarten.

He’s among scores of parents in Vancouver who found out last week that there’s no room for their child in a dozen neighbourhood schools. Many of these parents will have to search for another public school in Vancouver or consider a private school.

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Here is the list of schools and the number of wait-listed students:

• Emily Carr –– 11 students still to be placed.

• Edith Cavell –– 13 students still to be placed.

• Crosstown –– 33 students still to be placed.

• Elsie Roy –– 30 students still to be placed.

• False Creek –– 26 students still to be placed.

• Sir Sandford Fleming –– 18 students still to be placed.

• Simon Fraser –– 55 students still to be placed.

• General Gordon –– 17 students still to be placed.

• Henry Hudson –– seven students still to be placed.

• Annie B. Jamieson –– two students still to be placed.

• Lord Nelson –– 17 students still to be placed.

The VSB has asked the B.C. government to prioritize an elementary school in Olympic Village, along with a new school for Coal Harbour, with an estimated completion in 2023.

David Nelson, deputy superintendent at the Vancouver school district, says as schools begin to accept students who have applied for cross-boundary enrolment, additional spots may become available at full schools, and children may still be offered space in their catchment school.

He noted that last year there were initially 269 catchment kindergarten students placed on wait-lists, but the number dropped by 57 per cent to 115 students. The 115 students were then placed at nearby schools for school start-up in September.

Should a family decide to accept a place for their child in a district choice program or to a cross boundary school, their child’s name remains on the home catchment school’s waitlist until a place at that school is offered.

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VSB chairwoman Janet Fraser says the Coal Harbour and Olympic Village schools have been priorities on their capital-plan requests to the government for many years. She says the board has taken “the unprecedented step” of self-funding construction of a new elementary school at Coal Harbour, as well as a larger elementary school at the downtown Lord Roberts Annex site.

Other capital-plan submissions include expansion requests to the Ministry of Education at schools including Edith Cavell, False Creek and Henry Hudson.

-With files from Gordon McIntyre and Susan Lazaruk