Living in the Central Okanagan seems to be a pretty compelling option for a growing number of families, if you use the school district’s most recent enrolment figures as a measure.
Bucking the trend of diminishing enrolment across the B.C., the local district reported an unexpected surge in its student population.
“Enrolment has increased since last year and it is up significantly over what we were projecting,” said Hugh Gloster, school superintendent.
There are now 21,585 students in the district, which is 326 more students than the district had projected. It’s also 258 students more than were enrolled last year.
“Overall, it’s a good news story, though it does present some challenges for us in terms of accommodating the growth.”
To deal with the increase in students, the district hired nine new teachers this year.
They were able to get the new hires in time for the year starting due to the new online registration system that was implemented provincewide , as it gave them a heads up well into the summer.
Each cachement areas showed growth, except for the Glenmore and central Kelowna area which had 68 fewer students than the previous years.
Other trends are as follows:
•Secondary schools are 153 students over their projected enrolment, and they have 331 more students than they had by Oct.3, 2014
•Middle schools are 29 students over their projected enrolment, and they have 43 fewer students than they had by Oct. 3, 2014
•Elementary schools are 120 students over their projected enrolment, but they have 63 fewer students than they had in October, 2014. Most of this reduction is as a result of the change in grade configurations in the Rutland zone of the District.
•Alternate student enrolment is currently 342 students compared to 309 students for the same time last year. However, this number is expected to increase prior to the provincial enrolment count of Sept. 30, 2015
