The Garden Valley School Division (GVSD) is planning for approximately two percent enrolment growth for the fall.
Coming out of the pandemic, the division's student population jumped to around 4100, a gain of over 12 percent, according to Superintendent Dan Ward.
"You know, that was a bit of an adjustment. We were anticipating that, but the most recent growth year over year was much closer to 2%. So you know from about 4100 kids to 4200 kids, it's more manageable in terms of staffing and just ensuring that we can set up classrooms in such a way that our class size stayed manageable."
Currently, GVSD's enrolment is 4250 students, which is up about 50 kids from the beginning of September. Ward says that is steady and stable. "And so we're anticipating another increase next year, and that's what we're budgeting on in terms of our staffing deployment."
Ward says the projected enrolment for the 2024/25 school year is just over 4300 students.