Registration has greatly increased in the Northern Lights School Division (NLSD) this year, which has many board officials expecting the projected enrollment numbers to be enough to offset the provincial budget cuts.
“The influx and growth in enrollment mitigates the loss of budget, so we were projecting that if we had slightly over 6,000 students, basically our budget would be as it was last year,” said NLSD Superintendent Roger Nippard. “We are above that, which is really good news. The additional enrollment will certainly help us in dealing with the budget hit that we took last year.”
Preliminary enrollment numbers were released at the NLSD board meeting on Sept. 4 with the total sitting at 5,967 students across the division. Those numbers had yet to include the students at the Art Smith Aviation Academy and Hutterite School, which would easily push the total up over 6,000 students.
Bonnyville is one location in the division that has seen the most dramatic increase in terms of enrollment, as 179 new students have signed up for the new school year.
The biggest jump in Bonnyville is at Duclos School, where over 80 new students have enrolled for class.
“It's been very good. We have been getting students from all areas, locally, from across Canada and various parts of the world,” said Duclos Principal Richard Cameron. “That is exciting receiving all of these new kids into our school.”
Duclos has hired several new staff members to accommodate the increase in students, as well as created three new classrooms.
The enrollment numbers, although good, have started to worry some of the educators within the school division.
“It's always good. You wonder where the kids are coming from, but certainly when you get an influx of that many students in one community there is an impact to the infrastructure,” said NLSD Board Chair Arlene Hrynyk. “That's what the board is concerned about now, where do we put these children?”
According to Cameron, Duclos is “very close” to capacity and wouldn't be able to create another classroom for students this school year.
“All of our available classroom space is pretty much utilized as it is. There is no real flexibility left in the design of this building to create additional class space if needed,” said Cameron.
Other schools in Bonnyville which saw increases were H.E. Bourgoin, with about 60 new students, and Bonnyville Centralized High, which has seen about 30 new students enroll.
The NLSD board will be working with schools in the future to look at options if growth in the local schools continues.
