Despite challenges caused by COVID-19, the Prince Albert Catholic School Division’s enrolment numbers have remained strong.
As of the Sept. 30 enrolment deadline, a total of 2,962 students attended school in the division. Education director Lorel Trumier said that’s about 11 students under their projections, which works out to roughly one less student per school.
“We are pleased with our enrolment,” Trumier said. “I think our teachers and our staff and our schools built really strong relationships with our students and families. They are back, and we are so happy to have the kids in school.”
Final enrolment numbers were an important point of discussion during the board of education’s regular meeting on Tuesday. Trumier said there were some concerns enrolment would drop this school year. She’s happy to see that wasn’t the case, especially in the early grades.
“With COVID we were wondering if our families would keep their children in school or if they would want to keep them home, because of course Kindergarten is not required,” she explained.
“As well, we are always interested in ensuring that our pre-Kindergarten (classes) are full, so that if there are families that want to have their children in pre-Kindergarten, there is spaces for them. We are grateful for the enrolment there.”
There are 174 students enrolled in pre-kindergarten courses across the division, and 176 in kindergarten.
The total English enrolment is 1,891, while the total French enrolment is 897.
“We are happy to say the families and the students are staying,” Trumier said.
“We are pleased about that and we are just settling in now and making sure that we have things working the way we would like to have them working,” she added.
St. Anne School had 534 students with 236 English students and 298 French. Ecole St. Mary High School, which had a record number of grduates in 2020-2021 had 991 total students with 720 students registered in English and 271 registered in French. St. Michael School which is split between English and Michif had 201 students registered in English and 12 students registettd in Michif.
St. John School had 266 students registered, St. Francis School had 290 students registered, St. Catherine School has 146 students registered and Holy Cross has 328 registered.
Enrolment on Sept. 30, 2020 in the Catholic Division was 3,022 and in 2019 was 3,247.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
