150 Kindergarten students not yet registered in Kamloops school district

KAMLOOPS – Registration numbers for Kindergarten students are down significantly from what the school district expected for the upcoming school year.

The district has been experiencing overall declines in enrolment for over a decade, however 150 students is a particularly large number. This is part of a 385 overall student decline expected in the district this year. The district expected to only be down about 300 students.

Last tallied in March, Supt. Karl deBruijn says the number of Kindergarten students registered may have fluctuated slightly, but is still much lower than what was expected. Now deBruijn is asking parents to register their kids sooner rather than later.

The school district conducts enrolment forecasts based of registrations from the last five years combined with area birth rates to get an estimate of how many kindergarten students should show up come September, deBruijn says.

“We were anticipating 1,000 in all of district 73, the majority being in Kamloops,” deBrujin says.

Every year students move in and out of the district and it is difficult to accurately predict enrolment.

“We never know the exact amount of students until we see the whites of their eyes,” deBruijn says.

This shortfall of students has far reaching implications. Fifteen teachers were given layoff notices at the end of this past school year and enrolment directly affects teaching positions in the fall.

For this reason and others, deBruijn asks parents stop by or phone the school board office to register their Kindergarten students; the earlier the better. Registration is possible at schools the last week of August and first week of September.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Dana Reynolds at dreynolds@infonews.ca or call 250-819-6089. To contact an editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.