New Case Comment: Choice of School – Catchment Area

This case comment was prepared by Emily Ernst (law student volunteer) and Rachel Parry (Staff Lawyer).

This case involved a dispute between parents over which school their child, aged 4, should attend, with both parents wanting the child to attend the public school in their local catchment area.

The parents had already agreed to joint decision-making and shared parenting of the child, with the child residing with each parent on a week about schedule. Neither of the parents were working and neither had reliable access to a vehicle. However, the father was permanently unable to work due to serious medical conditions, while the mother was planning to go back to work once the child started school.

The court’s authority to decide which school a child attends is found at s. 28(1)(b) of the Children’s Law Reform Act, with the court’s guiding principle being the best interests of the child. The court in this matter went so far as to state that “the interests of the parents are relevant only insofar as those interests influence the best interests of the child. The parents’ self-interest is otherwise not relevant… it is [the child’s] commute time, and not of the applicant, that matters for the purposes of the court’s analysis”.

Cases about what school a child should attend are very fact specific. In this case, the parents focused on some of the following factors in their evidence: (i) the parenting faults of the other parent; (ii) their personal efforts in preparing the child for school; (iii) their willingness to help with homework; (iv) prior socialization that the child had with other children in their catchment area; and (v) the differences between the schools (i.e. the schools’ rankings and the programs each school offered). The court found that these factors were too similar on both sides to weigh in favour of either parent. The court also dismissed the mother’s attempt to include her family’s historical attachment to the school in her catchment area, with the court stating that since the child had no family members currently attending that school, the mother’s past connection to the school was irrelevant to the best interests of the child.

Ultimately, the court ordered that the child attend the school in the mother’s catchment area for the following reasons:

1. If the child attended the school in the mother’s catchment area it would allow the mother to become more easily employed, something that the father could never be due to his medical issues. The court found that it was in the best interests of the child for at least one parent to be employed to improve the family’s financial position. The family was living on very modest means (OW and ODSP incomes) and the court found that “it would be an obvious benefit to the child’s security and stability for her mother to improve her financial position”.
2. If the child went to the school in the father’s catchment area it would significantly limit the mother’s ability to work. On the days when the child is in the mother’s care, the mother would have to travel for several hours each day to drop off and pick up the child from school. This would limit the jobs she would be able to apply for given she would only be available to work for a few hours each day.   
3. The father will never be able to work, so it made more sense for him to travel a further distance to pick-up and drop-off the child at school. This commute would not impact the family’s finances in the same way that it would for the mother.