The final enrolment numbers are in and after more than a decade of enrolment decline, the North Okanagan Shuswap School District has increased by more than 100 students over the last year.
This also means the school district will now move out of a funding protection formula, designed to provide base funding for school district in enrolment decline, to the standard per-pupil funding formula. This should have some financial advantages for the school district for the coming budget year.
As of Sept. 30, which is when the province requires enrolment counts, this school district had 6,061 students registered.
The additional students have placed some stresses on the system , especially in the areas of Sorrento and Carlin, where a new class was created Tuesday to accommodate overcrowded conditions.
“We were watching the situation at Sorrento and Calrin Elementary pretty closely because we knew we were getting to a point where if a Grade 3 student walked through the doors, we wouldn’t be able to accommodate them at either school,” says Carl Cooper, director of instruction for the school district.
Dealing with enrolment issues at the K-3 level is always more challenging because there are hard class size limits of 22 strudents in Kindergarten and 24 for grades 1-3. After that, there are class limits, but they are more flexible regarding numbers.
While Cooper notes that reshuffling classes at Sorrento Elementary was not ideal with students already in class for a month, he notes the additional teacher will mean class sizes will drop for all students affected and space has been freed up for students who otherwise might have had to travel into Salmon Arm.