ATHABASCA — The numbers are in and as of September 30, enrolment at Aspen View Public Schools is up.
At the Oct. 6 meeting held at Boyle School, secretary-treasurer Aimee Hirtle presented trustees with several graphs showing overall numbers for each school in the division as well as where numbers are below the threshold.
“This is an increase of 144 students from 2021 to ‘22, which is amazing, and an increase of 135 students from our projected enrolment, which is also amazing,” she said. "We weren't expecting to get this many kids obviously.”
There are also six children registered for homeschooling included in the numbers but 112 pre-Kindergarten children who are not and while the numbers overall are up, in some grades in some schools, there is still cause for concern.
“The thresholds that are laid out in Policy 15 that just outlines any schools that are found below those thresholds that were set in that policy,” said Hirtle. “So, you'll see Grassland (School) is low in a couple of areas, Rochester (School) is low in a couple of areas (and) Smith (School) is low in most of them.”
In a nutshell, there needs to be 40 students in Grades 1 to 6, or 20 students in any three consecutive grades in elementary school. For junior high it is 30 students in Grades 7 to 9 or 20 students in schools with two junior high grades and in high school the threshold is 30 students in Grades 10 to 12.
Rochester School has 45 students, up from last year’s 41 and crushing the projected enrolment of 38, but Grades 1-4 are still below the threshold levels.
“I've been really pleased with the action and the activity in the Rochester area to increase their enrolment,” said trustee April Bauer. “I believe that principal (Elizabeth) Siemens has done a wonderful job over the summer marketing her school and her programs.”
Boyle School had 227 students last year and 246 this year; Edwin Parr Composite School jumped from 681 students to 721, Grassland dropped two students down to 61 over last year; Landing Trail Intermediate School grew by 20 students to 276; and Whispering Hills Primary School gained 11 students moving from 304 to 315 this year.
“We're not used to this type of an increase in students,” said Supt. Neil O’Shea. “And I'm actually very curious to do some analysis on our new students and to see where they've come from and we will get to that, we just have not had time to do that at this point in time.”
Across the entire division the enrolment for 2021-22 was at 2,511 and for this year it was projected to be 2520 but came in with 2,655 students or a 5.74 per cent increase.
"I know this is the first time since I've been a trustee that we had two numbers like this and what a good problem to have,” said chair Candy Nikipelo. “It is amazing, so good news for us.”
