By Tom Mark

School District 83 Official Trustee Pleased At Enrolment Boost

Sep 13, 2017 | 10:21 AM

Eighty-three more students than forecast have registered for school in the North Okanagan-Shuswap School District.

District Secretary-Treasurer Nicole Bittante told last evenings school board meeting that preliminary numbers show six thousand 159 students as of September 7th.

Official trustee Mike McKay it’s very positive.

“It looks like we’ll be up a hundred kids. Nothing is firm until the end of September, which is the enrolment count. But things are looking really positive right now. Lots of people moving to the area, coming to the district and coming to our public schools, so that’s all good news.”

Once the numbers are final, that will be sent to the education ministry which will decide later in the year on extra funding.

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” We get per pupil funding and also because of the new collective agreement language or the restored language we will be receiving some additional funds to deal with class sizes that need to be mitigated.”

The board last night also heard that 44 full time equivalency teachers have been hired this year.

“That’s a big number. In a district our size, in a community our size or a number of communities our size 44 teachers is a big boost to everything as far as the community dynamics, obviously the school and education system, but the local economy.”

Those hirings come on top of teachers who were hired to replace others who were retiring.

The new hirings are based on a couple things.

“Well, a number of the new teachers would have been hired on enrolment lift and a number would be based on the class size and composition changes which required us to open up some extra divisions.

Those divisions were at Highland Park, South Broadview, Salmon Arm West, Silver Creek, Ranchero and Sorrento schools.

Most of revenue to come later in the year will go directly to the classrooms to pay for teachers, educational assistants and classroom resources.

by Tom Mark