The number of empty desks in Nanaimo schools is expected to continue to increase in the next three years.
Phil Turin, secretary-treasurer for Nanaimo school district, said enrolment will continue to slide – as it has been doing for a number of years – until the end of the decade and even then, increases are expected to be slight.
The latest three-year enrolment forecast is based on December enrolment numbers, a forecast from a private planning company and consultations with principals on how many new kindergarten students they expect to get.
“They’re the ones in schools,” said Turin. “Those are things we don’t have data on.”
The district has 13,141 full-time equivalent students this school year. The numbers are expected to decline by 46 students next year, 134 students in 2013-14 and 163 students in 2014-15 for a total drop of 333 students over the next three years.
But Turin said next year’s forecast is more accurate than the ones looking two or three years ahead, as the forecast merely rolls over numbers from the current year.
