DESIRÉE DECOSTE

STAFF WRITER

At the Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board meeting Monday night an update to the 2019-2020 enrolments for elementary and secondary schools was announced.

At a Hastings and Prince Edward District School Board meeting Monday night Superintendent of Business Services Nick Pfeiffer announced elementary enrolments were collected on Sept. 6, 2019 and updated on Sept. 13, 2019 with secondary enrolments collected on Sept. 13, 2019.

Near the start of every school year, HPEDSB administration collects elementary and secondary enrolments and compares them to projections, ultimately determining the impact on education staff and school organization in order to address provincial class size guidelines and to match funding to disbursement.

Appendix A summarizes the enrolment totals and compares those totals to the projections as well as the previous year.

Overall, board wide enrolment was buoyed by a larger than expected increase in Kindergarten students and that influx helped negate a draw down on the Grade 4-8 grouping.

At the secondary level, the system is still experiencing a decline in the number of Average Daily Enrolment (ADE) and lead to an overall decline of 50 students.

In 2019-20, the HPEDSB is expected to educate 14,895 students, a decline of 88 pupils over 2018-19.

ADE Elementary	2018-2019 Actual	2019-2020 Projection	2019-2020 Revised Projection	Year over Year Change	Change vs Projection
JK-3	4,966	4,871	4,930	(36)	59
4-8	5,401	5,514	5,452	51	(62)
Total Elementary	10,366	10,385	10,382	16	(3)
Secondary	4,564	4,510	4,460	(104)	(50)
Total	14,930	14,895	14,842	(88)	(53)

“A net total of two additional elementary classes have been added to comply with class size regulations (at the primary panel),” Pfeiffer stated. “The largest change in enrolment is in the kindergarten classes, with an additional four early childhood educators being added.”

Overall, elementary enrolment continues to show evidence that it’s stabilizing, with a year-over-year increase of 16 students.

The revised projection shows decrease of 50 ADE over original projections, and a year-over-year decrease of 104 secondary students. No changes to secondary staffing have been made as a result of Sept. Enrolments.

The Board didn’t indicate if the lower-than-expected numbers at the secondary level were due to programming fluctuations caused by Ministry of Education cutbacks.

Pfeiffer said in the report administration is in the process of finalizing the impact on staff needs and class sizes to determine whether further adjustments are required.

For the full report please visit http://www.hpedsb.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Public-Board-Meeting-09_23_19_AgendaPagkage-1.pdf

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