British Columbia School Districts, 1865 -- 1946
DEFINITIONS- Colonial Schools & Common Schools, 1865-1868
- Common Schools, 1869-1871
- "Defined" & "Undefined" Common Schools, 1871-1901
- City Schools & Rural Schools, 1884-1901
- Rural Municipality Schools
- Rural & Assisted Schools, 1901-1946
Colonial Schools & Common Schools, 1865-1868
The term common schools refers to the publically-supported schools which were established on Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia from the mid-1860s to the mid-1880s. The term is derived from Vancouver Island's Common Schools Act of 1865. In practice, the term common school was interchangeable with the term public school.
On Vancouver Island, schools which had been established prior to 1865 - as in Victoria (1852), Nanaimo (1853), and Craigflower (1855) - were locally known as colonial schools. But any public school established before 1871, when British Columbia became a province of Canada, could be (and sometimes was) called a "colonial" school.
Common Schools, 1869-1871
When the colony of Vancouver Island was annexed by the colony of British Columbia in 1866 (creating the so-called "United" Colony of British Columbia), the Common Schools Act of 1865 was rescinded. It was replaced by the Common School Ordinance of 1869.
Under the terms of the 1869 Ordinance, a common school could be established when two-thirds of the local ratepayers petitioned the governor to designate their community as a school district .
To qualify as a school district, a community had to have at least twelve (12) children between the ages of 5 and 18 years who wished to attend a school. Local residents had to agree to serve as school trustees and were responsible for contributing towards the capital costs of the school. When the governor-in-council was satisfied that there was adequate local support and funding for a school, it would formally establish a school district and provide a grant of up to $500 per annum for a teacher's salary.
"Defined" & "Undefined" Common Schools, 1871-1901
The provincial Public School Act of 1872 made provisions for two types of school districts - defined and undefined - and provided for different levels of funding depending on the number of school age children who were enrolled in the district. In most cases, however, schools were referred to as common schools, irrespective of the classification of their school districts.
Defined School Districts
Under the terms of the 1872 Public School Act, a school district might be officially established or formally defined if there were at least fifteen (15) children between the ages of 5 and 16 years in a community. (The minimum school age was raised from 5 to 6 years in 1893 and in 1897 the requisite number of children was increased from 15 to 20.)
As was the case previously, local residents were required to petition the government if they wanted to have their community designated as a school district. If there were a sufficient number of school age children in the community, and if at least three residents were qualified to serve as school trustees, a school district would be formally established by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council [i.e. cabinet]. The boundaries of the school district were then "defined" and published in the British Columbia Gazette.
In formally defined school districts, the provincial government met the entire costs of education, including teachers' salaries, building costs, equipment and school furnishings.
Undefined School Districts
In areas where there were not have enough school age children to meet the requirements for a defined school district, "undefined local schools" could be established. In such cases, the provincial government provided discretionary grants to help pay the costs of teachers' salaries, but local residents had to pay for a school house and for equipment and furnishings.
Under the terms of the 1872 Public School Act, an undefined local school required a minimum of seven (7) and a maximum of fourteen (14) school age children in attendance. In 1901, the minimum number of children was increased to ten (10) and the maximum number was set at nineteen (19). These small, minimally-endowed schools were afterwards known as assisted schools.
City Schools & Rural Schools, 1884-1901
In 1884, provincial school districts were divided into two broad categories: City and Rural.
City School Districts typically embraced several different schools; they were required to elect more trustees than Rural School Districts and gradually they assumed a greater proportion of the costs of education. [For more detailed descriptions and a list of City School Districts, click here .]
Schools located outside urban areas were classified as Rural Schools. Each rural school district was a separate administrative unit and each unit was responsible for operating a single one or two-room school. Between 1884 and 1901, rural school districts included both defined and undefined schools, as described above.
Rural Municipality Schools
In 1906 a new category of school district was established in large towns such as Summerland and in municipalities such as Saanich, Burnaby and Richmond. There several once-separate rural school districts were combined to form "Rural Municipality" School Districts. Five years later, in 1911, these large, suburban administrative units were restyled "District Municipality" School Districts. For more information about municipal schools, click here.
Rural & Assisted Schools, 1901-1946
After 1901 a distinction was made between schools which had twenty (20) pupils or more and schools which had fewer than twenty school-age children.
Schools which enrolled at least twenty pupils were classified as Rural Schools. These schools were established within formally-defined rural school districts and were administered by locally-elected school trustees.
Schools which had fewer than twenty pupils and received minimal government support were classified as Assisted Schools.
After 1932, separate "rural" and "assisted" classifications were no longer used by the Education Department. Instead, all small schools, outside City and Municipal School Districts, were classified as Rural Schools. By that there were over eight hundred (800) separate rural school districts in British Columbia. Over the next decade, many of the schools closed or were consolidated into large "administrative areas." The administrative areas were precursors to the large administrative units created in 1946.
For descriptions and lists of the rural and assisted schools in operation prior to 1946, click here .
