Limestone District School Board information

Limestone District School Board (LDSB, known as English-language Public District School Board No. 27 prior to 1999^[1]) is an English public district school board encompassing a region that includes the City of Kingston and the counties of Frontenac and Lennox and Addington in Eastern Ontario, Canada. The board was founded in a 1998 provincial reorganization of all Ontario school boards. It is an amalgamation of the former Frontenac County and Lennox and Addington County Boards of Education. The board's Chair for 2023-2024 is Robin Hutcheon. The Vice-Chair is Bob Godkin.

The Limestone District School Board serves 21,206 students at 70 schools and centres, employing 2,200 teachers and staff. The district covers a geographic area of 7,719 square kilometres including the townships of Central Frontenac, Addington Highlands, North Frontenac, South Frontenac, Frontenac Islands, Loyalist and Stone Mills, as well as the Town of Greater Napanee and the City of Kingston.

As of September 1, 2014, the board operates 53 elementary schools, 11 secondary schools, the Limestone School of Community Education and other specialized education centres. The community served by each school is indicated in the list below after each school's name. Some students may attend a school outside of the area they reside so that they may take part in a special program. The school board is expecting slowly declining enrollment, particularly of secondary students, until about 2016. A provincial full-day kindergarten program is expanding enrolment in all elementary schools and is now available in all elementary schools.

The board of trustees of the Limestone District School Board has recently built two new elementary schools and one K-12 high school (opened January 2014) within the district. These schools have been built in the Pittsburgh District of the City of Kingston, in the south end of the Town of Napanee and in Sharbot Lake. An expansion of Sydenham High School was completed in January 2014. A number of existing elementary schools in the district will be closed as these new consolidated schools open. Each new elementary school will have an enrolment of between 600 and 800 students.

Program and Accommodation Review Committees (PARC) for Central Kingston and Kingston North presented reports in 2012-13 with respect to changes to elementary and secondary school accommodation. Senior staff made further recommendations based on these reports for consideration by the board of trustees in 2013. Public concerns have arisen about the possible creation of a "school desert" in the central part of Kingston as a result of school closures or changes approved by the trustees in June 2013. The final form of these changes was confirmed after a review by the board of trustees of a number of contributing factors including funding, site availability and technical development issues. The design concept for the new intermediate and secondary school to be located on the QECVI school property in Kingston was approved in December 2015 by the board of trustees.

Limestone's board of trustees are elected officials responsible for the operation of public schools in the district. Trustees are the critical political link between community and school boards. They ensure public schools meet the diverse needs of students in their community. They are elected by the public school taxpayers every four years, during municipal elections and are directly accountable to the community. The current nine-member board will serve until November 30, 2022. Trustees are elected by geographic electoral areas within the area administered by the school board. The board also has three Student Trustees representing urban and rural secondary schools, as well as an Indigenous representative. They serve a one-year term and are elected by the Limestone District Inter-School Student Council each spring.