Vancouver School Board surprised by drop in enrolment

The Vancouver School Board has confirmed a dramatic drop in enrolment this year and is trying to figure out why.

Earlier this year the board estimated about 250 fewer students would attend classes this year. But over the weekend the board said there areat least1,100 fewer students in school.

Vancouver School Board chair Ken Denike said Sundayhe is most surprised by a drop of almost 300 children enrolled in kindergarten.

He said hewonders if some parents have decided to keep their children at home until Grade 1.

Denike also ispuzzled that the decline seems to be hitting schools in East Vancouver, like Sir Charles Tupper Secondary, the hardest.

Hesaidrising housing prices and other economic factors could be driving more families to the suburbs, where enrolment is increasing. He said he doesn't have firm answers.

"We're going to have to look at this a little closer than in the past, and I think we're going to have to do some far better projections, because this is not acceptable."

Because of the drop in enrolment, the board will sustain a net loss of about $1.5 million in provincial funding.

However, Denike says there won't be any job cuts because ofenrolment decline.

"There will be no layoffs in Vancouver," he said. "We have a number of positions for full-time teachers on call, and we will be taking teachers who we can't place because of this drop in enrolment and put them in those positions."

The board also plansto usesome of its capital contingency reserve to make up for the loss in funding.

Declining enrolment a general trend

Declining enrolment isn't restricted to Vancouver. Many districts across the provinceare seeing a drop in students.

The Langley School District says it has about 220 fewer students this year.

"It's not an even decline throughout the district," said spokesman Craig Spence. "In some areas we do have increasingenrolment, but in other areas we have continued declining enrolments."

Vancouver-based demographer Davis Baxter said the decline could be easily predicted by looking at the birthrate from five years ago.

"We've seen school enrolments decline since 2001 or 2002," hesaid.

Baxter adds that the cost of family housing affects where people live and that in turnaffects enrolment in particular schools.

B.C.'s school districts will be doing their final head counts this week before submitting the information to theB.C. government.

Because public school finding in the province is based on enrolment, many districts expect to receive less money this year.