The Lakeland Catholic School District (LCSD) has seen consistent growth in enrolment over the last two years.
Over the 2017-18 academic year alone, the district saw an eight per cent jump in the number of students attending their schools.
“We started the year at 2,393 students in September 2017, and presently we have 2,485 students,” said superintendent Joe Arruda, during the April 25 board of trustees meeting.
Over the last two years, the district has seen an 18.5 per cent jump in enrolment.
“This unprecedented growth is due to the very young demographic makeup of the City of Cold Lake, Town of Bonnyville, and Lac La Biche,” explained Arruda. “It’s also due to the settlement of new immigrant families, that are coming to our region, primarily from Philippines and also from Latin America. We’re also seeing new students from neighbouring First Nations and Métis communities.”
Mary Anne Penner, board chair, added, “We offer good quality education for our students. We have a safe and caring environment within our school and we work very hard to ensure that our students are safe and they have a good teacher teaching them and receive the best education we can offer them.”
As of March 31, Assumption Jr./Sr. High School has seen the highest enrolment this year with a total of 504 students. Holy Cross Elementary wasn’t far behind with 431, and Notre Dame Elementary had a total of 385 students.
Apart from a slight drop of about five students for Assumption, the rest of the schools in the district noticed an increasing trend during this academic year.
Looking ahead to next year, LCSD hopes to continue the positive growth.
Arruda said, “We’re projecting an increase of four per cent next year, and we’re always ultra conservative for our projections. We like to be surprised in September.”
With the increasing number of students interested in LCSD schools, the school board tries to focus on hiring additional staff.
“We’re staffing all of the schools based on increased projections. Our projections are always on a conservative side. We make sure that we staff schools adequately, so we speak with the principals about their needs,” detailed Arruda.
While outside factors are partly responsible for the growth, Penner noted the district does put time and effort in to increase enrolment. Staff work to get the information out to the public and to new parents that are moving to the area by using different sources, whether it’s through mail, advertising, social media, or through siblings who are already in school.
The school board is hoping the next academic year will bring them over 2,500 students.
