Only 9 divisions in province gained, held firm
Winnipeg Free Press
Sunday April 3 2005
By Nick Martin
EVERY school division in Winnipeg had fewer students this year than the year before -- from a drop in enrolment of six kids in Seven Oaks to a provincewide biggest loss of 393 in Winnipeg School Division.
Throughout Manitoba, enrolment in public schools is down 1,905 children this school year to 186,688, Manitoba Education reports.
Only nine school divisions in Manitoba increased their enrolment or held steady, while 29 dropped in enrolment over 2003-04, the province said.
"That's been a pretty consistent pattern over the last few years," said Education Minister Peter Bjornson.
But even though small rural divisions are enrolling fewer kids every year, Bjornson said there are no divisions showing any interest in amalgamating voluntarily, and the government still has no plans to impose another round of mergers.
In the last five years, public school enrolment has dropped by 5,193 children, and comparisons of the 2000-01 and 2004-05 school years show about 1,000 fewer students enrolled in each of the younger grades this year than there were in the fall of 2000 -- an ongoing pattern that recent Statistics Canada studies have projected will continue. The highest growth in the province came in Steinbach-area Hanover School Division, with 237 additional students this year, an additional 87 in Thompson's Mystery Lake S.D., and 64 in Winkler-area Garden Valley S.D.
Steinbach and Winkler have had influxes of immigrant families in recent years, but the growth in Thompson came as a surprise. Officials in Thompson were not available for comment.
Unlike last June, when six public schools closed across Manitoba, only Brandon's Fleming School is scheduled to be closed June 30.
Winnipeg S.D. board chairwoman Joyce Bateman said part of the reason for the drop in enrolment was major renovations to the Winnipeg Adult Education Centre that disrupted some classes, and the shift of military families from Kapyong Barracks to CFB Shilo. Carpathia School lost 30 students and J.B. Mitchell School 27 students.
"We're talking less than one per cent," Bateman pointed out. "There was a very large impact, 211 students, on the Winnipeg Adult Education Centre. We believe that was caused by the impact of construction -- we'll have to see if that comes back."
Elsewhere in Winnipeg, River East Transcona dropped 291 students, Pembina Trails lost 263 students, Louis Riel 161, Seine River 22 and St. James-Assiniboia 10.
For every student it loses, a division gets about $3,600 less in provincial operating grants. In large divisions, the impact of fewer students is scattered and diluted across classrooms in dozens of schools, making it difficult to cut costs by hiring fewer teachers and operating fewer classrooms.
And while city divisions are losing students, the empty desks tend to be in older neighbourhoods, while new suburban subdivisions continue to grow. The province has refused to build new schools in the suburbs if there are vacant desks elsewhere in a division.
St. James-Assiniboia has projected inexorable and increasingly larger enrolment drops for the foreseeable future, and has launched a community consultation process that could combine Silver Heights and Sturgeon Creek collegiates.
Bjornson said that no division has come forward seeking to amalgamate voluntarily with another Manitoba school division, even though some small rural divisions are steadily declining in numbers.
Flin Flon is sounding out neighbouring Creighton, Sask., about an innovative cross-border merger.
But there is no sign of any other amalgamation. When the NDP announced its plans for widespread mergers four years ago, it targeted shrinking divisions of less than 2,000 students. Some of the small rural divisions the government inexplicably bypassed in forced mergers in the fall of 2002 are continuing to drop in enrolment, such as tiny Turtle River (831 students), Turtle Mountain (1,193), Pine Creek (1,301), and Lakeshore (1,365).
Bjornson insisted that the government has no plans "at this time" to force more mergers on any division. "That hasn't been part of the dialogue," he said. "We've worked hard to mitigate the impact of declining enrolment" through special grants.
Meanwhile, enrolment in independent schools is up by 39 students over the year before, or 0.3 per cent this year, to 14,329.
Enrolment had steadily grown in private schools through the late 1990s as the former Conservative government had increased operating grants. Since the NDP froze private school funding at 50 per cent of the per-student grants paid to public schools, enrolment has grown by 83 students in five years.
The major shift in private schools has been the growth of the largest faith-based schools, often at the expense of smaller schools.
Schools such as Linden Christian, Faith Academy, Calvin Christian, Spring Academy, Holy Cross and the Gray Academy of Jewish Education have added hundreds of students, while seven funded independent schools have closed in the past five years. As well, 10 independent schools that choose not to take any provincial funding did not report operating in 2004-05, after having classes in 2003-04.
Bjornson said he was not aware of changing enrolment patterns in private schools, nor was he aware that some schools have closed.
Private schools must follow the provincial curriculum and hire certified teachers, he said.
"They do what they do. Our purview with the independent schools is quite limited."
nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca