For the first time since the 2008-2009 school year, and for only the second time since regionalization in 1995, the Pembina Hills school division has a larger student population than the previous year.
As of a student headcount completed on Sept. 30, area schools have a combined population of 4,052 — up 12 students from the 4,040 students at the same time in 2010.
Division secretary-treasurer Tracy Meunier said the increased enrolment is a welcomed surprise.
“It’s great that we’re up 12 (students) actual to actual, because normally in rural jurisdictions, we’ve been on a decline for the last 16 years,” she said.
As a result of this increase in enrolment, the division received $800,000 to provide additional resources to those new students, she said.
This is in stark contrast to the division’s financial picture at the end of the 2010-2011 school year, when it was faced with a $1.3 million budgetary shortfall based on its projected student enrolment.
In fact, Meunier said when compared to what the division was projecting would be its enrolment numbers for this school year, the increase over last year’s actual numbers is even more startling.
Originally, the division had projected it would have 3,888 students for the current school year, she said. Instead, the actual number is 164 students more.
That dramatic turnaround has prompted the school board to hope the long-term enrolment decline may finally be at least slowing down.
“After at least 10 years of declining enrolment, the board is cautiously optimistic that we might have reached a plateau where we can’t go any lower than that,” said board chair Doug Fleming.
As previously mentioned, the enrolment jump has provided the division with more money to allow it to hire new staff to work with the new students, Meunier said.
“What it does do is create an opportunity where the more children you have, the more financial resources you have, therefore the more services you can provide,” she said.
The majority of the extra $800,000 the division received has already been spent hiring additional staff, she said. Since each school is faced with different enrolment circumstances, she said the new staff were allocated based on specific needs.
Both Fleming and Meunier cautioned that the overall enrolment increase is just that, an overall number. It masks certain areas where the number of students occupying desks is below even what was projected.
One such area of concern is the Westlock North schools: Dapp, Jarvie and W.R. Frose in Fawcett. Those three schools combined have 30 fewer students than last year, a fact that Meunier said is not good.
“That’s not a happy news, good news story for those communities,” she said.
For Fleming, although the enrolment drop in the Westlock North corridor is not a good thing, he said he can understand why.
“We have to recognize that families are mobile,” he said. “You’ve got to go where there’s work and I think in some of those cases, that’s what’s happened to those families.”
In cases where schools have actual enrolments less than their projections, Meunier said it’s harder to effectively staff the school because there will be underutilized staff there.
“You try to make adjustments as best as possible, but the fact if you’re usually probably going to run a deficit and then the deficit comes from your reserves,” she said, adding that for divisions with reserves that’s not a major problem.
The decline in the Westlock North schools, as well as several other rural schools is contrasted with the increases seen in the town schools. Barrhead Composite High School and Barrhead Elementary are up a combined 35 students, while R.F. Staples and Westlock Elementary have 28 more students total than last year.
Eleanor Hall is sitting with 16 more kids, and Swan Hills is up eight.
Despite the disparity in the fortunes of all the schools, Fleming reiterated that he and the board are optimistic that the decade-long enrolment decline is at an end.
