When the Vernon School District prepares its annual budget, it’s all about enrolment: more students in the classroom means more money from the Ministry of Education.
And for the 2015/16 school year, superintendent Joe Rogers is happy to report that enrolment is up by about 70 students from initial projections.
“To analyze this from last September, we’re up about 100 kids,” said Rogers, at Wednesday’s district board meeting. “These numbers are still in flux because we have some kids who might be registered in two or three districts, but this is really good news.”
Total enrolment is at 8,400 students — 200 are international students, 1,100 are aboriginal students.
Projected enrolment was for 7,820 full-time equivalent (FTE) students in the regular program, kindergarten to Grade 12, but as of Wednesday at 3:45 p.m., total enrolment is at 7,894 students.
The alternate program — which takes kids all year long — is at 99 FTE students; distributed learning is at 108; level one special needs is five; level two is 230; level three is 50; English language learning is at 70. Adult education and continuing education numbers were not available at press time.
“Vernon is out of funding protection and out of declining enrolment,” said Rogers. “This is good news to be on the positive side of the ledger as we move forward.”
