PRINCE ALBERT — The Saskatchewan Rivers School Division saw a significant increase in enrolment according to their Sept. 30 data reported to the province, and that has the division adding an extra $600,000 for more staff.
In a report at the board’s final meeting before school board elections, Director of Education Neil Finch reported that the division was up more than 200 students from Sept. 30, 2023.
The division’s Sept. 30 actual enrolment was 8,614, while on Sept. 30, 2023, the actual enrolment was 8,844 an increase of 230 students.
Finch said the motions were good news for the division, but it also means they’ll be spending an extra $600,000 on staffing.
"We've been able to respond with a motion that came forward from the board last night to spend up to $600,000 over our budgeted amount knowing that we will get an adjustment to our budget because of the enrollment increase,” Finch said.
“We are going to hire some more staff as a result of that, and (the funds) would be put into the classroom. Teachers and EAs would be the first staff that we'd be looking at supporting in our schools.”
Initially, the actual number of students was 1.6 per cent above projection. That’s an unexpected increase of 144 students.
Finch said there could be several reasons for the unexpected increase, but it was difficult to pinpoint a main cause.
"There's so many factors and it's one of those things that's really hard to know exactly where the direct result is … especially when you start looking school by school,” he said. “Some schools are up, some schools are down, so it's hard to predict what that looks like too.”
The Division has been making efforts on the marketing side that may be attracting students, according to Finch. Over the past year, Saskatchewan Rivers has marketed itself as a first choice school division.
“(We are) doing lots of things to make sure folks know that Sask Rivers will offer an excellent education for students,” Finch said. “Families are starting to see that and come our direction, which is fantastic.”
School-by-school, year-over-year numbers were not available, but Finch said that schools in both rural and urban saw increases.
"It's really all over the place. There are 33 schools, but our biggest increase would have been actually at PACI school. They're up 82 students from what we thought they were going to be at.”
Finch said the increase is interesting because they weren’t sure there were large population increases in Prince Albert and the surrounding communities.
"There are more students coming back to school and I think we still had, post-COVID, some students and families that had not returned,” Finch said. “Part of our increase potentially is folks returning to school and getting school-age children back to education, which is something we are excited about,” Finch said.
