By Curtis Galbraith

Schools

More money from province to deal with unexpected enrollment increases good news says GPPSD superintendent

Nov 28, 2023 | 5:42 PM

The superintendent for the Grande Prairie Public School Division calls an announcement from the province good news, but he doesn’t know how good yet.

The government is spending another $30 million to help cover unexpected enrollment growth.

School divisions that have seen growth of 0 to 100 students will get $1500 per student. Any division where the number is over 100 gets $2000 per student.

Sandy McDonald says they will need to look more closely at the details.

“We had projected around two per cent enrollment growth and our actual enrollment growth was 4.89, or 4.9 per cent.”

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“It’s the second year in a row that we have far exceeded what we had projected.”

McDonald says the increase works out to another 407 students, giving the division a total enrollment of 8750.

He says many schools do have room to handle more students, but others are “very, very full.”

“Our Grande Prairie Christian School, for example, is very full. Isabel Campbell Public School on the west end is very full.”

“The new Grande Prairie Composite High School is more full than we had anticipated it would be at this point in time.”

Parkside Montessori is also full.

McDonald says enrollment growth at the Comp. was over 10 per cent. It has room for 1500 students and currently has 1450.

The district has put in a request for modular classrooms.

The division’s capital plan requests more high school space at the Comp. and Charles Spencer, and a new K-8 school in the Kensington area on Grande Prairie’s west side.

McDonald adds a lot of the increase is because more people are moving to Grande Prairie.

“The information we get is that our birth rates have really not picked up substantially.”

“I don’t know about recent birth rates, but the birth rates from four or five years ago that would be feeding students into our schools remained lower than they were 10 years ago.”

McDonald says the division has seen students coming from BC, Ontario, and other provinces.

He thinks this growth speaks to what he calls “the positive future” for the division.