Wife is sponsoring myself and my daughters PR. Can my daughter study in Canada?

[stvpket]

Hello,

We are at a very confusing part of our PR process. My wife is a Canadian citizen and we submitted outland PR paperwork on 12/2016 From the US. She was approved to sponsor after 14 days. Now my and my daughters application is under review. We plan to land in BC at the end of May 2017, my wife moving back and myself and my daughter "visiting" while our PR in in process. I do not currently have a work visa but hopefully working on that soon. My question is can my daughter who is 7 years old attend school? I see that she can apply for a study visa but its asking for a letter of acceptance if I don't have a WV. We called the school district and school in Vernon, BC to see if we could get said letter but they said that can't give us anything unless we are residents of the district. I see that we need to apply for the study visa outside of Canada from the US so how do we go about being a "resident of the school district" to applying for SV outside Canada? Can my wife being a step-mother of my daughter get her enrolled in school since she is a Canadian citizen even though she isn't the Bio mother or have had adopted my daughter? Any help would be greatly appreciated as we are pulling our hair out trying to make sure we are doing everything correctly... Hopefully our PR will be approved before May but we are not getting our hopes up.

 

[canuck_in_uk]

I do not currently have a work visa but hopefully working on that soon.

My question is can my daughter who is 7 years old attend school? Can my wife being a step-mother of my daughter get her enrolled in school since she is a Canadian citizen even though she isn't the Bio mother or have had adopted my daughter?

Hi

Unless you have a job offer in Canada that qualifies under NAFTA, there s little chance you will qualify for a work permit before PR.

It depends on the school/school board. Some have allowed Canadians to enroll their step-kids without a study permit, some haven't.

 

[Rob_TO]

Yep it's entirely up to the school and what their policy is. You need to call to the schools in the area you'll be moving to, and ask if they will accept her as a student based on the PR app in progress. If they say no then you would have to arrange to enroll her as an international student, pay the huge student fees, and get a letter of acceptance to obtain a study visa.
I've heard of both ways happening, lots will just depend on luck if you get a generous school or not.

 

[canadianwoman]

People on the forums have reported that they have asked at several schools, and the policy varied. Most likely the principal wasn't really sure what the policy was supposed to be. So if the first school tells you the child needs a study visa, ask at others, even in the same district.

 

[stvpket]

Ok great, when we called the school and school district last time they were wondering why we had to have the letter. They said why don't you just enroll her and gave us the basic things we needed to get her enrolled such as birth certificate, school records, and heath card. I am assuming I could just use the private health insurance info I will have when we go up there. I just don't want to do anything that could impact our PR application.

 

[canadianwoman]

Enrolling your child in the district where you and the child's stepmother will be living will not be suspicious and will not cause any problems with the PR application.

 

[danawhitaker]

Hello,

We are at a very confusing part of our PR process. My wife is a Canadian citizen and we submitted outland PR paperwork on 12/2016 From the US. She was approved to sponsor after 14 days. Now my and my daughters application is under review. We plan to land in BC at the end of May 2017, my wife moving back and myself and my daughter "visiting" while our PR in in process. I do not currently have a work visa but hopefully working on that soon. My question is can my daughter who is 7 years old attend school? I see that she can apply for a study visa but its asking for a letter of acceptance if I don't have a WV. We called the school district and school in Vernon, BC to see if we could get said letter but they said that can't give us anything unless we are residents of the district. I see that we need to apply for the study visa outside of Canada from the US so how do we go about being a "resident of the school district" to applying for SV outside Canada? Can my wife being a step-mother of my daughter get her enrolled in school since she is a Canadian citizen even though she isn't the Bio mother or have had adopted my daughter? Any help would be greatly appreciated as we are pulling our hair out trying to make sure we are doing everything correctly... Hopefully our PR will be approved before May but we are not getting our hopes up.

Realistically, unless Ottawa (who I'd assume is processing the application if you're from the U.S.) slows down drastically, I can't even see this being an issue for you. Someone from December actually had their background check start earlier this week and got DM today. As of today, all of the September applicants on the spreadsheet for Ottawa have DM, and some from October have also received it over the past week.

We haven't told my daughter yet that the school year in Ontario ends a month later than the school year in our home state. She's going to be quite surprised.

 

[stvpket]

Realistically, unless Ottawa (who I'd assume is processing the application if you're from the U.S.) slows down drastically, I can't even see this being an issue for you. Someone from December actually had their background check start earlier this week and got DM today. As of today, all of the September applicants on the spreadsheet for Ottawa have DM, and some from October have also received it over the past week.

We haven't told my daughter yet that the school year in Ontario ends a month later than the school year in our home state. She's going to be quite surprised.

Hopefully that will be the case of getting PR by May. Thank you for the help!
Oh your daughter should love that! ;D