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.
