School patronage

RainyDay

Still, it could be worse. Have a look at the response to education reforms in Mexico....

http://www.demotix.com/news/2562110/riots-mexico-city-during-march-against-education-and-energy-reform

recedite

Obliq wrote: »

...say that I'm surrounded by a choice of 5 catholic schools, only one of which is within walking distance/short drive and the others are within 12 miles from my house (rural area). If they all publicly display that their enrollment criteria will include RCC membership, and the teachers can't tell me my child would be accepted until less than a year before they start school because a first come/first served basis is not in operation any more, then presumably none of the schools would be inclined to tell atheist/other religious parents that their child has a place until it becomes clear there are some left over (at which time there will be a lottery, apparently)...

Being on the list early was never a guarantee of a place anyway. At present they don't usually confirm a place until the last year AFAIK. Just in case somebody else comes along and "needs" to skip the queue. You are a bit naive if you think it was ever "first come first served". That was only ever one consideration.
In a remote area, the principal might have "assured you" years in advance that a place was available, but the priority of remote schools is to enrol as many pupils as possible, so they don't lose a teacher's salary. I know a family whose kids who have changed school for this year. The principal of the old school asked them to contact the principal of the new school and ask that the kids be allowed attend the old school for the first week. Otherwise he loses a salary next year. The principal of the new school said no, he needed the numbers himself :pac:

recedite

iguana wrote: »

What if your local school is a Catholic NS and the one 6 miles away is an Educate Together? Do the Atheist, Muslim, Mormon, etc families in the first area have to send their children to the NS while the Catholic families in the second area have to send their kids to the ET even though they'd prefer the NS?

I agree it gets messy. There is a new free education (ie not private) secondary school being built near where I live by the State. It will have a C of I ethos. As a condition of getting the patronage, the C of I will be required to give equal priority to all local kids, regardless of religion. The only other secondary school in the town is RC.
This means that there will be lots of kids from the local ET primary school, and various others, who will go to the school and be exposed to an unwanted "ethos" or indoctrination, fully at the States expense.
Meanwhile there will be C of I kids living just outside the town who will not be able to get a place, even though the parents want the ethos.

AFAIK this will be the first school where a minority religion is imposed on kids who are attending their local free school, and all paid for by the State.

The only long term solution is to secularise all State funded schools, and not just their admission policies.
There is nothing to stop faith and other special interest schools operating privately, with whatever fees, policies and curriculum they like.

recedite

Morag wrote: »

We already have that, it is set along parish boundaries, both catchment for schools and polling stations.

Incorrect, the world does not revolve around the arbitrary boundary set by your local godman.

Faith schools operate on parish boundaries, but these vary and overlap according to the faiths in question.
VEC and ET schools generally use a map, with the local area boundaries being main roads, rivers etc.

Polling stations use electoral divisions which are based on old townlands.

Bus Eireann school buses measure distance in Km from the house to the nearest school, to determine eligibility for a place on the bus.

expectationlost

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I cannot for the life of me understand why a simple catchment area system cannot be drawn up and children who live within that area are given first priority for NS schools.

I've been looking into this part of the reason there isn't a simple catchment list is because they don't have a definitive map of the school catchments, being based on parishes

a Bishops council researcher descibes how the only started making a map in 2008 and had only manage to complete two of the diocese http://53degrees.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/drawing-lines-on-pages-remaking-a-very-public-geography/ at the time of writing

Hmm depending on where I build my house I could be 1.9kms from my old (Catholic) NS and 2.8kms from the new (small) ET school or vice versa.

My polling station is further away in both cases.

expectationlost

this is a few years old but look here as a councillor complains that he isn't being given the dat the department of education collected on school demand http://www.williamlavelle.ie/?p=354

Bannasidhe

recedite wrote: »

Incorrect, the world does not revolve around the arbitrary boundary set by your local godman.

Faith schools operate on parish boundaries, but these vary and overlap according to the faiths in question.
VEC and ET schools generally use a map, with the local area boundaries being main roads, rivers etc.

Polling stations use electoral divisions which are based on old townlands.

Bus Eireann school buses measure distance in Km from the house to the nearest school, to determine eligibility for a place on the bus.

Surely the logical thing (who am I kidding - this is Ireland, home of the lack of joined up thinking) would be to use the electoral divisions as the basis for determining catchments.
Which ever NS you vote at - that's your local school.

recedite

expectationlost wrote: »

...a Bishops council researcher descibes how the only started making a map in 2008 and had only manage to complete two of the diocese http://53degrees.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/drawing-lines-on-pages-remaking-a-very-public-geography/ at the time of writing..

Parish boundaries are loosely based on townlands, but if there is no church in an area, or if a new church gets built, they would have to adapt things. Cartography is precise work, which does not always suit men of the cloth :pac:
Hence they have a tendency to "wing it" and hopefully nobody asks any detailed questions about the boundary.

In this case, they seem to have harnessed some third level institutions to do their work for them, which should save a few quid, for the church.

The recent history of the digitisation of the Catholic parishes goes back to the summer of 2008 when (in my capacity as IBC’s social researcher) I was able to offer a short summer studentship to Omar Sarhan, as part of his MSc in GIS & Remote Sensing at NUIM.....


...No matter where we put the lines, the local parishes were less defined lines and more mental constructs.....


Four years later, the project now involves UCC’s cartographer, Ordnance Survey Ireland and the Department of Geography NUIM......

"Mental constructs" LOL... that sounds familiar to anyone who has ever tried to reason with a religious nutcase.
And I seriously doubt that Omar Sarhan is a practicing catholic, but hey, if somebody else is paying for the work, who gives a $hit.

expectationlost

recedite wrote: »

And I seriously doubt that Omar Sarhan is a practicing catholic, but hey, if somebody else is paying for the work, who gives a $hit.

we'll try to leave Omar Sarhan personal life out of this, but I do give a **** whether these maps are made, how else do we plan if we don't have these maps, they should have been made years ago, and the depatment of education should pay atleast 50% for them (because they and we need them as much as the church does) to be completed and published publically, how else are parents and local authorities and the dept supposed to plan for schools

Bannasidhe

recedite wrote: »

Parish boundaries are loosely based on townlands, but if there is no church in an area, or if a new church gets built, they would have to adapt things. Cartography is precise work, which does not always suit men of the cloth :pac:
Hence they have a tendency to "wing it" and hopefully nobody asks any detailed questions about the boundary.

...and townlands are loosely based on the old sept divisions within the wider clan lands which became either baronies or counties when Anglicisation was imposed in the late 16th/early 17th centuries.

TheChizler

Bannasidhe wrote: »

...and townlands are loosely based on the old sept divisions within the wider clan lands which became either baronies or counties when Anglicisation was imposed in the late 16th/early 17th centuries.

This is clearly your area Ban, I vote you take over the boundary mapping responsibilities

PopePalpatine

Whenever I see the word "sept", I think of the Faith of the Seven from A Song of Ice and Fire.

recedite

expectationlost wrote: »

we'll try to leave Omar Sarhan personal life out of this, but I do give a **** whether these maps are made, how else do we plan if we don't have these maps, they should have been made years ago, and the depatment of education should pay atleast 50% for them (because they and we need them as much as the church does)

They could use census data which is based on electoral districts.
You do realise that a "parish boundary" is just the administrative area for the purposes of one religion? I doubt the universities would be as quick to jump in if the mosques needed help with their admin work.

expectationlost

recedite wrote: »

They could use census data which is based on electoral districts.
You do realise that a "parish boundary" is just the administrative area for the purposes of one religion? I doubt the universities would be as quick to jump in if the mosques needed help with their admin work.

cos we live in country where the catholic church owns most of the schools!

how do you plan schools without knowing the current areas they are based on!

swampgas

recedite wrote: »

<...>
The only long term solution is to secularise all State funded schools, and not just their admission policies.

Totally agree.

There is nothing to stop faith and other special interest schools operating privately, with whatever fees, policies and curriculum they like.

Here I disagree. I think the state school system should be secular, and I think participation should be mandatory. I think allowing private schools to run their own self-segregating enclaves is bad for the children who attend them and bad for society in general.

expectationlost

use the airo nuim access time map as type of school catchment map http://airomaps.nuim.ie/flexviewer/?config=AIROAccessMap.xml

expectationlost

find school transport maps to find school catchment maps? http://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Value-For-Money-Reviews/st_vfm_school_transport_scheme_2011.pdf

expectationlost

http://education.ie/en/Press-Events/Press-Releases/2013-Press-Releases/PR13-09-02.html
the admission policy draft plans

expectationlost

http://193.178.1.238/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20090409.xml&Page=2&Ex=2259#N2259 2009

I take it that the Deputy is seeking copies of each catchment area map in the country.

By way of general background information, catchment boundaries have their origins in the establishment of free post primary education in the late 1960’s.

For planning purposes, the country was divided into about 300 geographic districts, each with several primary schools feeding into a post primary education centre with one or more post primary schools. The intention was that these defined districts would facilitate the orderly planning of school provision and accommodation needs. They also facilitated the provision of a nationwide school transport service, enabling children from remote areas to get to their nearest school.

In view of the number of catchment area maps involved, the Deputy will understand that it would be a major logistical exercise to collate and send all of these maps to him. However, if the Deputy has a particular area in mind I will arrange to have the map forwarded to him.

expectationlost

here's children ombudsman case study with more detail

http://www.oco.ie/complaints/investigations-and-case-studies/school-transport.html

The issue of which was the correct map to be used in 2005 could have been determined conclusively if the Planning Section of the Department of Education and Science had furnished the Ombudsman for Children’s Office with a copy of a master map to include all catchment boundaries which was identical to that held by the relevant Bus Éireann office or that which was in place in the Local VEC office in 2005, or as near to identical in so much as the variation was negligible.

The Department of Education and Science did not supply a map to meet this standard as required. The map provided to this Office by the Planning Section in June 2006:
1. is different to what is currently being used by Bus Éireann and the VEC;
2. is questionable as to its suitability as it appears to be incomplete;
3. appears to be a large scale map scaled on a ratio of approximately 1:62500 and, as such, does not provide the required detail to administer such a scheme effectively and accurately; and
4. contains excessively thick boundaries for the purposes of clarity and accuracy.

inocybe

I'm going to have a fight on my hands soon. I qualify for reduced cost school transport due to low income, but my closest school is... surprise surprise... Catholic run. I'm much further away from a VEC, which is the school I'll be using. Quote below is from Bus Eireann's website

'The Department and Bus Éireann determine what is the relevant school, having regard to ethos, language and the shortest traversable route from the child’s home.'

It will be interesting to see what school the bus company deems as 'relevant', I don't hold out much hope.

Morag

The majority of VEC schools are faith schools, they have in their founding documents a obligation to the spiritual guideance of students. When it is said VEC schools are multidenominational that means it caters for more then 1 type of christian denomination.

Turtwig

Took some time but all posts relating to secularism and religious teaching have been moved to a separate thread.. This thread contains lots of useful info and links so I felt it best to separate the vigorous debate from it.

expectationlost

Jernal wrote: »

Took some time but all posts relating to secularism and religious teaching have been moved to a separate thread.. This thread contains lots of useful info and links so I felt it best to separate the vigorous debate from it.

oh thank god :rolleyes:, er jernal

recedite

inocybe wrote: »

I'm much further away from a VEC, which is the school I'll be using. Quote below is from Bus Eireann's website

'The Department and Bus Éireann determine what is the relevant school, having regard to ethos, language and the shortest traversable route from the child’s home.'

Current Bus Eireann policy is to have no regard for the difference in ethos between the different free schools, unless they are protestant run.
You will be refused a free place on the bus, and then you will need to appeal the decision to the school transport board within one month. If that is refused, go to the Equality Authority.

expectationlost

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=86382671&postcount=109 i think there is parish-school catchment areas and then these primary to post primary districts aswell?

recedite

Its not realistic to think "we have a national system of catchment boundaries" any more than it is realistic to say "we are a catholic country." If you want to know what the catchment area for a particular school is, go and ask the principal. If the next school along is owned by the same patron, the two catchment boundaries will correspond, but if not, they may overlap.

recedite

The whole issue of the school bus is quite interesting. I know there is a group of catholic parents currently campaigning to have their kids bussed to the nearest RC school, which involves bypassing a new ET school. They are quite upset that ET got the patronage of their new local school.
Their point is that protestant kids have been getting this facility for years, ie transport "to the nearest school with regard to ethos" which meant skipping past the local RC controlled school and travelling on further to a CofI one.

As more patronages emerge, the whole situation becomes unsustainable, with school buses racing around going in all different directions. You could have a group of muslims living in Meath or Wicklow asking for a bus to be provided to take their kids into the Islamic school in Dublin every day.

The only long term solution is state secular schools, which anyone can attend. Free of unwanted religious indoctrination, and free of any discrimination regarding race or religion in the admissions policy.

inocybe

recedite wrote: »

The whole issue of the school bus is quite interesting. I know there is a group of catholic parents currently campaigning to have their kids bussed to the nearest RC school, which involves bypassing a new ET school. They are quite upset that ET got the patronage of their new local school.
Their point is that protestant kids have been getting this facility for years, ie transport "to the nearest school with regard to ethos" which meant skipping past the local RC controlled school and travelling on further to a CofI one.

As more patronages emerge, the whole situation becomes unsustainable, with school buses racing around going in all different directions. You could have a group of muslims living in Meath or Wicklow asking for a bus to be provided to take their kids into the Islamic school in Dublin every day.

The only long term solution is state secular schools, which anyone can attend. Free of unwanted religious indoctrination, and free of any discrimination regarding race or religion in the admissions policy.

I agree, but in the meanwhile it seems that 'ethos' describes only other religions not those with none. Surely it's less offensive for a catholic to attend a protestant school, both being christian, than for an atheist to attend either?