Like many other Ontario towns in the region, the city of Burlington is served by multiple autonomous publicly funded school boards. Unlike other smaller Ontario towns, Burlington has no less than four separate school boards who oversee education in different languages and religions. Parents can choose to send place their child under the supervision of any of the four without incurring tuition fees or worrying about whether the administration is going to want to administer saliva drug tests. Most parents choose according to their chosen language and religious beliefs rather than the location of the school in the neighborhood.
The Halton District School Board is the most typical of the four according to what you would expect in other parts of Canada. It provides a secular learning environment and oversees 28 public elementary schools and 7 secondary schools in the city of Burlington. Because it is nonspecific in its religious affiliation and located in a primarily Anglophone province it has the largest percentage of enrollment and consequently the most schools, but they're still publicly funded so don't expect fancy wooden vanity cabinets instead of lockers.
Halton District's French-language counterpart is the Consiel Scholaire de District de Centre Sud Ouest, which, because of its smaller number of students encompasses not just a single district but the whole of South-West Central Ontario. The Consiel Scholaire offers education in French immersion for Francophone children or parents who wish their children to grow up bilingual so they'll be more appealing to executive recruitment services.
Parents who prefer their children to have Catholic religious study included in their daily education, have two options: schools with wall word art in English or in French. The Halton District Catholic School Board offers classes in English and runs 13 elementary schools and 3 secondary schools in the city. The much smaller Conseil Scholaire de District Catholique Centre Sud handles the French Catholic education requirements of all students in the South-Central portion of the province.
Burlington is a large enough city to have a fifth option as well: private schooling. There are several private schools located in the city of Burlington from pre-school to secondary school. Some offer nondenominational Christian instruction, some are based on the Montessori method of learning, and others are specialized university preparatory schools where they'll eat scones and play around with expensive online collaboration software. All private schools charge tuition but some offer scholarships to offset the costs for low income parents of bright children.
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