Though the decrease was not as great as last year, enrolment within Pembina Hills Public Schools has fallen by 32 Grade 1-12 students from the previous year, a decrease of approximately 0.9 per cent.
Secretary-treasurer Tracy Meunier presented the division’s Sept. 30 enrolment count to trustees during their meeting at Swan Hills School on Oct. 26.
Currently, Pembina Hills serves 3,782 Kindergarten to Grade 12 students in 11 community schools, two Hutterite colony schools and two outreach centres in Barrhead and Westlock.
Meanwhile, Kindergarten enrolment dropped six students from Sept. 30, 2015, coming in at 360.
Last year, the division saw a decrease of 76 Kindergarten students and 18 Grade 1-12 students.
The decrease came as no great shock to the trustees, as Pembina Hills has been on a mostly downward trend since 1994-1995 when total enrolment stood at 5,357.
That’s a total decrease of 1,485 students over the past two decades, equating to a 27.72 per cent drop.
“This tells the story of our past, but it paves the way of our future. If we ignore this, it will be at our peril,” Meunier warned.
She noted that over the past nine years, the division has closed two schools at Vimy and Meadowview, shut down the high school program at Fort Assiniboine and consolidated Jarvie, Fawcett and Dapp into one school.
Trustees also undertook a major attendance area review in the past year.
The reality is that the declining enrolment is not an issue for the division to deal with alone, but a community issue as well, she indicated.
“If nothing happens, you can predict in the next 20 years where this line is going to be,” she said, referring to a graph charting the downward enrolment trend .
In terms of individual schools, there was some good news: Eleanor Hall School in Clyde actually experienced an increase of 17 students from 2015-2016, although Kindergarten enrolment is down by two.
Westlock Elementary School also increased its enrolment by five students to a total of 545.
R.F. Staples School dropped two students for a total of 752, while Pembina North’s enrolment fell by 11 students — the school actually experienced an increase of five Kindergarten students.
Busby School’s enrolment decreased by a total of 10 students for a population of 92 K-6 students. Meunier indicated the biggest contributor to that decrease was a large Grade 6 class leaving the school.
On the plus side, Pembina Hills had actually projected a lower enrolment of 343 Kindergarten students and 3,502 Grade 1-12 student — a difference of 17 Kindergarten students and 10 Grade 1-12 students.
Trustee Jackie Comeau was impressed that division staff was so close in their projections “considering that it’s an entire school division, with different towns and everything.”
It should be stressed that none of the above enrolment counts include Vista Virtual school, which serves 5,364 students within a distributed learning (ie. online) environment.
Vista Virtual School’s population is spread out throughout the province, though the majority of students are in Calgary.
As well, Vista Virtual is not headquartered in any one community, as it has staff in Barrhead, Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge and other communities
Meunier noted that Vista Virtual does continuous enrolments throughout the year, so student population throughout the entire year could be as high as 7,800 students.
As of the Sept. 30 county, however, there were 225 elementary/junior high students taking Vista Virtual courses and a total of 5,139 high school students either taking courses full-time or part-time — part-timers may also be registered at another high school.
Meunier noted Vista Virtual is funded by Alberta Education for a total of 665 full-time equivalent students.
It is worth noting Vista Virtual’s population grew roughly 35 per cent between 2014-2015 and 2015-2016. Meunier said that is due in large part to people being more mobile and thus needing more flexibility.
“I would start, say, in Calgary and go to a bricks and mortar school there. But now that Mom and Dad are moving around for jobs more … so I go with my family. So I need the flexibility of a virtual school so that I can continue to go with my family,” Meunier explained.
