Enrollment numbers are slightly down for School District 53, but school closures are not on the horizon.
As of October 2, the school district is down about 16 full time equivalent (FTE) elementary students and 42.3 FTE in the secondary level. The YouLearn program is also seeing a decrease of 9.1 FTE.
The overall decrease from last year is 67.44 FTE.
Village councillor Sherry Philpott-Adhikary attended the school board’s regular meeting Oct. 28 to check on enrolment and possible ramifications.
“They are down not quite 2.5 classes so that will have some effect but there is no discussion at this time about any school closures,”Philpott-Adhikary reported to council.
The school board stated in a recent administration report that about $106,000 from the Teacher Education Fund reserve was allocated to offset funds lost by having less students.
Locally from the numbers taken on the snapshot date of October 2, recognizing those numbers will fluctuate throughout the year, Cawston Primary School is down in attendance by about 14 students while Similkameen Elementary Secondary School has remained par with the same number of students as last year.