Student enrolment in Prairie South School Division has jumped by nearly two per cent this year, with noticeable increases at Moose Jaw high schools and elementary schools in Coronach, Rockglen and Caronport.
As of Sept. 30, there were 7,096 students enrolled, which was an increase of 114 pupils — or 1.61 per cent — compared to what the organization had projected in the spring, according to a recent board report.
Including pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students, the total full-time equivalent (FTE) enrolment for PSSD this year is 6,719.5 pupils.
Holy Trinity Catholic School Division has also experienced similar enrolment increases this year.
“We think it’s great. We were significantly over our normal projections last year (by about 300 bodies/200 FTE spots), so we were hoping we would be flat or a little up,” said Ryan Boughen, PSSD education director. “… but overall, we’re obviously happy that our student population is up quite a bit.”
Division administration creates a staffing contingency plan in the spring to handle potential enrolment increases the following year, while it works with board trustees to hire more teachers if required, he explained.
Last year the increase forced PSSD to hire five teachers and nine educational assistants.
“This board is very supportive in terms of providing resources for classrooms. That’s a real good thing for Prairie South Schools,” Boughen added.
This year there was “a pretty strong group” of unexpected students in Grade 9 at Central Collegiate, which forced the division to hire one teacher there for the semester, Boughen continued. There was a large increase in that grade across Moose Jaw — which was “a pleasant surprise” — while further growth was evenly spread across other grades.
Prairie South uses a demographics software program called Baragar’s that uses health region data, migration information and birth data to predict enrolment, he said. Divisions are never sure how many students they will have in September, but they must still submit their projections to the Ministry of Education by June.
“Years ago, what would happen is your funding was based on your previous year’s enrolment. Now … your funding is adjusted (by the ministry in December) based on your actual Sept. 30 submission,” Boughen stated.
If every school division sees an increase, then the funding adjustment is small because there are few dollars to distribute, he continued. Conversely, if a division has a big spike and others don’t, it would receive a larger funding increase.
The ministry recently announced that it would distribute $15.5 million across the 27 school divisions because of the largest province-wide enrolment increase in over 20 years.
Boughen was unsure how much Prairie South would receive and likely wouldn’t know until mid-December when the ministry adjusted its funding grant. However, he didn’t think PSSD would receive as much if every division saw similar enrolment increases.
The education director was unsure from where these extra students were coming, pointing out the division was also surprised about its enrolment spike last year. While Baragar’s is usually accurate, the pandemic may have affected its predictive abilities, especially if students were not involved in school during the past two years.
Boughen still considered the enrolment increase good news considering he had been with PSSD long enough to remember when it lost 300 students a year.
“So we’re coming back to where we were at almost the time of amalgamation … with close to 7,000 students, so it’s really positive for Prairie South,” he added.
