Data Source: B.C. government (PDF)
The B.C. government has released the 2010-11 enrolment statistics for kindergarten to Grade 12, and the numbers have never been so low.
Kindergarten class sizes in B.C. average 18.3 children, a 27 per cent decrease from the sizes of Grade 8 to 12. The above map shows the class sizes for kindergarten students throughout the school districts in the province, but even the fullest classes average out to students at most.
In districts like Nisga’a and Stikine, enrolment in kindergarten averages between 10 and 11 children, though this is not a wide variance from Grades 8 to 12 because the communities are heavily populated by First Nations students.
Classroom sizes are largest between Grades 4 to 7 in B.C., while declining in the lower grades. Even in the heavily populated areas of the Lower Mainland, enrolment is smaller than previous years.
Vancouver and Langley school districts represent the largest class sizes in the Lower Mainland, though even these average below 20 students. The Sea to Sky Corridor, meanwhile, goes as low as 16.
Calculating the difference between Kindergarten enrolment and Grades 8 to 12 gives demographers the ability to estimate the future needs of school children over the next decade of urban planning.
Data Source: B.C. government (PDF)
The largest decline from Grades 8 to 12 and Kindergarten was a 36.3 per cent drop in Peace River South, a 34.8 per cent drop in Delta and a 33.5 per cent drop in the Sea to Sky Corridor. It should be noted, however, that enrolment increases 11.6 per cent in the Grades 1 to 3 demographic.
Enrolment isn’t down everywhere. Central Coast district, which covers the remote areas of coastal British Columbia, is actually up 17.2 per cent. Gold Trail district is also up 10.6 per cent. This district covers the area of the northern Fraser Canyon along Highway 1, notable for having the highest percentage of First Nations students in the B.C. school system.
The largest single increase is enrolment in French Immersion schools, which is up 21.7 per cent in Kindergarten, and at 18.4 students it actually eclipses the average provincial size.
Between the 2001–02 and 2008–09 school years, 176 public schools in B.C. have been closed. The provincial government cites declining enrolment as a reason, but the BC Teachers’ Federation claims it was to cut spending.
View BC public school closures in a larger map
This is the fourth and final installment of blog entries focusing on parenting and parent issues. You can see the previous ones by clicking on the “kidblog” tag.
Amazing and disquieting statistical stuff, dogg. I think you’re admirably restrained on the implications of these numbers. The main conclusion one *must* draw is clear, innit? This is the leading edge of a depopulation tsunami. The Canadian birth rate has plummeted to unheard-of depths, immigration cannot make up the numbers, and our society is shrinking.
Will our public institutions shrink in accordance? Not if the empire-protectors of the BCTF are any indication. My god, the “educators” actually stand up and demand *much more* funding to educate *many fewer* students. The public sector in general rolls this way, too. Laura Secord Elementary (where my kids go) is in the midst of a multi-year, fabulously-expensive “seismic upgrade” project — for a school which, as you’ve dispassionately proved, is going to be bloody *empty* in 15 years.
A smaller, older Canada may or may not be a good thing. But it’s coming. It’s gonna be necessary, therefore, to ruthlessly slash government bureaucracies everywhere. The BCTF and its quasi-governmental allies show how hard this will be. Civil-service entities without civilians to serve don’t just close up shop, apparently. They will have to be fought. Sad there won’t be any young idealists to do this. Sad that soon there’ll be almost no young Canadians at all.