Waterloo Catholic District School Board is a school board serving the Region of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Its headquarters are in Kitchener. It is the eighth largest Catholic school system in Ontario. As of July 2017, this Board operated 46 elementary schools, five secondary schools and four adult and continuing education campuses served by 3,500 full and part-time staff The Board's elementary, secondary and adult/continuing education students are served by more than 3,000 full-time staff. The total enrolment was 40,000, including the students in adult/continuing education programs. At the time, 22% of residential taxpayers were supporting Catholic schools and 30% of the Region's schools were operated by the Catholic Board. The Board has an annual budget of nearly a quarter billion dollars and currently operates according to its 2015-2018 Strategic Plan. This Board is run independently of the Waterloo Region District School Board, which operates the Region's 120 public schools.
Brief history
What was to become the Waterloo Catholic District School Board began in 1836 in a log building in St. Agatha, Ontario used by both the public and Catholic students. A permanent stone building was erected in 1854. A second school was also built in 1836, in New Germany in 1847. St. Jerome High School, then called a College, was founded in 1865 by Reverend Dr Louis Funcken and his brother Fr Eugene Funcken, Fathers of the Congregation of the Resurrection. The first location was a log cabin in St. Agatha but by 1867, the school moved to Duke St. in Kitchener. Initially, its role was to prepare young men for the seminary. This school closed permanently in 1990. By 1907 the local area had 6 Catholic Schools The original schools were centered in the areas of Berlin, and Preston With the passage of the British North America Act in 1867, which guaranteed Roman Catholics in Ontario the right to their own Catholic schools, it was only a matter of time until Catholic schools extended into all of Waterloo County. For many years, the teaching staffs came from among the Religious – particularly Religious Sisters. Today the laity carries out the teaching and support roles. Full funding to the Catholic school system began in 1984. By 1968, there were independent Catholic School Boards operating in Kitchener, Waterloo, Galt, Preston, Hespeler, Bridgeport, New Hamburg, Maryhill, St. Agatha, Linwood, Elmira and St. Clements. These independent Boards all ceased to exist on January 1, 1969, when the Ontario Legislature amalgamated them into one Board – the Waterloo County Separate School Board. In 1997, the Waterloo County Separate School Board was renamed and became the Waterloo District Catholic School Board. In early 2018, the Board indicated that enrolment was increasing more rapidly in the past four years than in previous years. Between 2005 and 2014 enrolment grew only 2%. Since 2014 however, full-time enrolment had increased from 19,718 to approximately 22,088 students. An estimate at the time indicated that roughly one in four students in the Region are educated by the Catholic Board.
