Addressing Vacant Seats

Specialized Programs with Vacant Seats Prior to the end of February

Should seats remain available in some program locations, all unseated applicants for the same type of program will be offered the vacant seats. Applicants can indicate which of the programs they may wish to be considered for.

Interested applicants will be seated in ranked order, based on their applicant score.
If seated, the applicant will no longer be eligible for their original primary or alternate program choices.

In programs with more applicants than seats available, applicants will continue to be placed centrally in available seats according to their ranked order. This central placement process will conclude on February 25, 2026.

After this date, schools may only fill vacant seats with local applicants who are registered to attend the school, also following their ranked order.

Ranked Order Local Waitlists

Following the placement deadline (February 25, 2026), seats may become vacant in a Specialized Program. To address these unfilled seats, schools with local catchment areas will receive ranked order local lists. These lists will include, in ranked order:

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Applicants who live in-area of the school offering the Specialized Program.
Applicants who are pre-registered to attend the school in 2026-27. This may include current 吃瓜黑料网 and students new to the 吃瓜黑料网 registered to attend the school in September.

Note: Applicants attending the school through Out-of-Area Admissions will not be included. Students attending the school through Secondary Schools without a Boundary will be included.

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Should space become available in the Specialized Program, applicants will be considered for seats in ranked order. These moves will be made in late June or early September. This process is being established to help ensure that as many students as possible are given the opportunity to participate in focused programming across the 吃瓜黑料网.

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Schools without local catchment areas will make offers until February. This includes: Claude Watson School for the Arts, Etobicoke School of the Arts, Karen Kain School of the Arts, Rosedale Heights School of the Arts and Ursula Franklin Academy.

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FAQ

Why would a seat become unfilled?

A student may decide not to attend a Specialized Program for several reasons. For example:

Family moves to another area of the city, or away from Toronto
Family circumstances
Health circumstances
Before or after starting the program, the applicant chooses another school or program that better meets their needs

Prior to the centralized process, seats went unfilled in many programs. The number was not known centrally.

Why are no further offers made through the Central process after the date of final offers?

The March Break is a time when schools start planning and building a schedule for the upcoming school year. At the core of this work is the staffing allocation for the upcoming year (the number of teachers assigned to work in each school), which is directly connected to the number of students attending the school.

Moving students from one school to another in the future can significantly impact the number of teachers that are assigned and permitted to teach in each school. When numbers shift, the result can lead to a partial school reorganization, an entire school reorganization, or the withdrawal and reassignment of teachers from one school to another in the fall. All of these changes create significant disruption to students across the system.

Is this a change in practice?

Secondary programs, which were at one time overseen by the former Optional Attendance procedure, had the same timeline for the expiry of waitlists. Secondary Specialized programs were not to make offers to new students after the end of February. The expiry of waitlists on the date of final offers, is NOT a change in procedural practice.

Elementary programs historically had a slightly longer window. The timelines for Elementary programs have been brought in line with the Secondary Programs, as the staffing timelines are the same for both panels.

What will happen to the staffing of Specialized Program schools that do not have a local catchment area if seats remain unfilled?

The staffing allocations for the five Specialized Program schools without a local catchment are not impacted if seats remain unfilled. A fixed staffing model is allocated based on the projected number of students.

What is the 吃瓜黑料网 doing to minimize the number of seats that go unfilled in Specialized Programs?

The Specialized Program admissions team and the individual programs are actively taking many steps. The steps include, but are not limited to:

Making more offers than there are seats available to minimize unfilled seats
Active communication with seated applicants and their parents/caregivers about the programs and the importance of declining seats before the expiry of waitlists
Partnership with the Special Education and Inclusion department, with the inclusion of seated lists in the Identification, Placements and Review Committee meetings (IPRC) for students potentially entering Intensive Support Programs in Grade 9