NLPS expects student enrolment will exceed conservative projections for coming years

Rachelle Stein-Wotten

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Gabriola Sounder

The business committee received three-year enrolment projections for Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools, hearing that immigration is expected to contribute to higher enrolment over the coming years.

Three-year enrolment projections are required by the Ministry of Education and Child Care and are used to calculate the estimated operating grant for the following school year.

Elementary numbers are estimated to be “reasonably level,” an NLPS staff report says, with an expected increase of 18 students for 2024-25.

An increase of 217 is expected in secondary next year as a small grade 12 cohort graduates and a large grade 8 cohort enters next school year.

Alternate, distributed learning, career technical centre (CTC) and continuing education programs are expected to be stable with a small decrease of 12 students expected this September.

Total estimated change to the district’s operating fund for 2024-25 compared to September 2023 numbers is 233 funded student full-time equivalent (FTE).

The actual enrolment for the current school year as of September 30 is 15,036 FTE.

For 2025-26, the school district is projecting 15,364 FTE students including kindergarten through grade 12, alternate schools, CTC, distributed learning, special needs, Indigenous education and English language learning while for 2026-27 that number rises to an estimated 15,476 FTE.

Projections are conservative, the district said, to ward against having to cut resources if enrolment is over projected.

The district expects actual enrolment will exceed projections.

“Due to the projected domestic enrolment increase, the international student program maintaining record levels of enrolment, and assuming that the Ministry of Education and Child Care fully funds general wage increases, the district is projected to be in a balanced budgeted position,” the report says.

More resources for programming are not expected, however, as a result of increased costs for wages and benefits and inflationary pressures.

The reopening of Rutherford Elementary, slated for 2025-26, is also expected to add additional operating costs.

At the Feb. 14 business committee meeting, Secretary-Treasurer Mark Walsh called Nanaimo Ladysmith Public Schools a “goldilocks district.”

While some school districts in the province are seeing significant migration and experiencing challenges housing new families, “this district is still growing – relatively quickly – but we can house the students,” Walsh said.