Changes
Many school districts were in existence prior to British Columbia joining Canada in 1871. Some districts were just single schools or even one teacher. Traditionally school districts in British Columbia were either municipal, which were named after the municipality such as Vancouver or Victoria, or rural and given a regional name. Many districts' names are a legacy of this pattern. In 1946, the Ministry of Education rearranged the province into 79 school districts, giving each a number and a name. The school districts were numbered geographically started in the southeast corner and proceeding in a counter-clockwise pattern. This has been disrupted by successive changes to districts. The most recent changes occurred in April 1996 with the restructuring and reduction in the number of school districts from 79 to 57.
| Old School District | New School District |
|---|---|
| 1 Fernie, 2 Cranbrook | 5 Southeast Kootenay |
| 3 Kimberley, 4 Windermere, 18 Golden | 6 Rocky Mountain |
| 7 Nelson, 86 Creston-Kaslo | 8 Kootenay Lake |
| 9 Castlegar, 11 Trail | 20 Kootenay-Columbia |
| 12 Grand Forks, 13 Kettle Valley | 51 Boundary |
| 14 Southern Okanagan, 16 Keremeos | 53 Okanagan Similkameen |
| 17 Princeton, 31 Merritt | 58 Nicola-Similkameen |
| 15-Penticton, 77-Summerland | 67-Okanagan Skaha |
| 24 Kamloops, 26 North Thompson | 73 Kamloops/Thompson |
| 29 Lillooet, 30 South Cariboo | 74 Gold Trail |
| 32 Hope, 76 Agassiz-Harrison | 78 Fraser-Cascade |
| 65 Cowichan, 66 Lake Cowichan | 79 Cowichan Valley |
| 80 Kitimat, 88 Terrace | 82 Coast Mountains |
| 21 Armstrong-Spallumcheen, 89 Shuswap | 83 North Okanagan-Shuswap |
| 55 Burns Lake, 56 Nechako | 91 Nechako Lakes |
Read more about this topic: List Of School Districts In British Columbia