It's a year of growth for Garden Valley School Division (GVSD), with the student population again topping the 4,000 mark.
Superintendent Dan Ward says on September 30th, the enrollment count was 4,060 students, a gain of over 10 percent from the end of September last year. Ward says with the influx of students, and new students continuing to trickle into GVSD schools, they will continue to keep close watch on enrollment.
"We know there has certainly been some growth in our community, in terms of newcomers moving in, and that continues. And of course, throughout the year there may be parents that are homeschooling that may decide to send their children to school...so those numbers always fluctuate year-to-year, and school divisions always keep a close eye on how that's impacting school-based enrollment."
Ward says they do get base funding for student enrollment, and noted the province always looks at trends and what the enrollment was the year before. He says that allows them to make adjustments based on what the division reports at the end of the month.
Along with the influx in enrollment, Ward mentioned GVSD has received quite a few new students recently who have English as an Additional Language, and need some additional support. He noted an assessment protocol is used with the students who come in where English is not their primary language. "These students would be EAL, or English as an Additional Language, and they get a variety of supports based on their level of English proficiency when they arrive," added Ward.
"So, the last four months we've received quite a few students who have English as an Additional Language and need some additional support. Our numbers are just over 120. Most of those students have actually arrived in the last four months, and that's really exciting I think for our community, and our schools. You know, at the school level, we do have the expertise to provide EAL support, and we did receive some additional funding from the province this year to provide additional support for learning needs as we come out of the restrictions associated with the pandemic."
Ward says they have provided some additional FTE in terms of teachers at a number of the schools that have a higher number of EAL students.
"We definitely communicate with our schools on a weekly basis, to determine what the needs are, where the influx of new students are that have arrived, not just for EAL, but enrollment all together, and we've made some staffing adjustment accordingly."