Aspen View Public Schools has released a preliminary student count and enrolment is “significantly” down this year, according to superintendent Mark Francis.
As of Sept. 1, the division is down 75 students under the projected estimate, but Francis expected that number to rise to 80 or 90 kids by Sept. 30.
“We are dealing with early numbers, but suffice it to say, we are down and that is not a great scenario for us, as we are already in a declining enrolment situation,” Francis said. “We declined more than we anticipated.”
Aspen View had projected 2,817 students to register in one of 13 schools across the division. However, only 2,726 have registered so far.
The biggest decreases have been at Whispering Hills Primary School, where enrolment dropped by 29 students, and Thorhild Central School, which was 25 students lower than anticipated.
“These numbers are still early and may not fully reflect kindergarten registrations,” Francis added. “We’ll see how it shapes up after the long weekend, but (by) early indicators, we’re not going to get 80 kids in the door.”
Aspen View communications officer Ross Hunter noted that he could not stress enough that these numbers are extremely preliminary.
“We have excluded outreach school numbers from this report as it is far too early to have accurate numbers for outreach, and including them would inaccurately skew the overall results,” Hunter said.
