Enrolment isn’t expected to keep climbing at its current pace, but this fall, at least, Nanaimo-Ladysmith enrolment has exceeded projections, school district officials say.
At the district’s Oct. 11 business committee meeting, Mark Walsh, SD68 secretary-treasurer, said 15,048 full-time students are enrolled, based on a late-September count, some 133 students more than September 2022 and 96 more than projected prior to the start of the school year.
“Overall, our district is in a ‘sweet spot’ for enrolment growth,” said Walsh, citing a staff report. “The growth is sufficient enough to support inflationary impacts, while not being too excessive that space, with a few exceptions, is at a critical point, so we’re in that ‘Goldilocks’ zone for growth and I’m hoping that we could continue this for many years to come. I think that would be very good for the district.”
According to the report, the highest elementary school enrolment is Grade 7 with 1,183 full-time students, while Grade 8 saw the highest high school enrolment with 1,197 full-time students.
The secretary-treasurer did say the there were fewer kindergarten students with 956 enrolled, representing 78 fewer pupils year-over-year and 37 below projections.
“So what this is telling us, and it’s a trend we were aware of, is … that Nanaimo-Ladysmith current citizens are not having the babies at the level that they were having five years before that,” he said. “If this trend was to bear out … we’re going to have a serious problems in a few years’ time.”
However, the counter to that, Walsh told trustees, is that immigration is rising “at very significant levels” and it’s something the district will be watching.
While the district expressed concerns about Nanaimo District Secondary School student numbers last school year, the secretary-treasurer said SD68 was able to curb student numbers.
“There is some good news in a sense that ND has slowed,” he said. “You’ll see that we have been able to drop the capacity by about 50 kids and we do have building permits to be opening the additional portables … we’re working to get them available for students.”
When asked by trustee Mark Robinson about reasons for NDSS’ slowing enrolment, Walsh suggested it was the school district’s efforts.
“It’s a combination of us limiting international students at the school, but [aso] unfortunately us denying access to late registration,” Walsh said.
A report on how to deal with NDSS overcapacity will be coming at a future meeting.
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