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.矛I think that is probably one of the most positive aspects from a school division point of view,卯 Sacher said following the board meeting on Sept. 14. This year's funding won't be confirmed until the end of the month.矛If 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.卯Sacher said the trend in rural school divisions is for slight declines due to demographics.矛This 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,卯 he explained. 矛Overall we're very pleased with the numbers.卯Three of the division's smaller schools 帽 Benalto, Reed Ranch and Elnora 帽 showed promising growth, Sacher said. Elnora's student enrolment increased for the second straight year and is currently sitting at 95 students 帽 up 18 from the 77 students enrolled at the school last September.矛It's almost an astounding number there,卯 Sacher said of the Elnora numbers. 矛It's really coming up.卯In 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 鈥ole John Wilson Elementary School.矛They pretty much stayed the same,卯 said Sacher. 矛(There are) really no big surprises one way or the other.卯Enrolment 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 帽 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.矛Other 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,卯 he said, noting any decline would have been anticipated due to changing demographics. 矛From our point of view it's almost a negligible difference off of last year's enrolment.卯
