Chinook's Edge School Division officials say they are buoyed by news that enrolment numbers have remained steady heading into the new school year.Superintendent Kurt Sacher said the division's enrolment is currently sitting at 37 students above their initial budgeted projections.ìI think that is probably one of the most positive aspects from a school division point of view,î Sacher said following the board meeting on Sept. 14. This year's funding won't be confirmed until the end of the month.ìIf those numbers hold until Sept. 30 that means an additional $200,000 for the school division that wasn't anticipated, which allows us to address class sizes and deal with some of those hot spots in the school division.îSacher said the trend in rural school divisions is for slight declines due to demographics.ìThis year we pretty much flatlined. Any differences in our numbers over last year could just be due to the tenuous nature of some of the data this early in September,î he explained. ìOverall we're very pleased with the numbers.îThree of the division's smaller schools ñ Benalto, Reed Ranch and Elnora ñ showed promising growth, Sacher said. Elnora's student enrolment increased for the second straight year and is currently sitting at 95 students ñ up 18 from the 77 students enrolled at the school last September.ìIt's almost an astounding number there,î Sacher said of the Elnora numbers. ìIt's really coming up.îIn Innisfail, overall enrolment dropped slightly at Innisfail Jr./Sr. High School, Chinook Center School and Innisfail Career High Outreach, while enrolment remained steady at Innisfail Middle School and increased by 21 students at …cole John Wilson Elementary School.ìThey pretty much stayed the same,î said Sacher. ì(There are) really no big surprises one way or the other.îEnrolment numbers are also up significantly at Penhold's Jessie Duncan School and Penhold School, and Bowden Grandview School in Bowden.Carstairs Elementary School showed an enrolment increase of 30 students over last year's numbers while Hugh Sutherland School's enrolment decreased by nearly an equal amount.Overall there are 10,649 students currently enrolled in Chinook's Edge schools ñ a decrease of 88 students from last year. The decrease is mainly due to the unstable nature of enrolment at career high schools, Sacher explained.ìOther school numbers are fairly stable. That number, 88, when you put it in the context of 10,750 kids could easily swing the other way,î he said, noting any decline would have been anticipated due to changing demographics. ìFrom our point of view it's almost a negligible difference off of last year's enrolment.î
