District Wide Enrolment Trends
Since 2004, considerable change has taken place in the Maple Ridge – Pitt Meadows School District. The graph shows the school district’s historic headcount enrolment for elementary, secondary, alternate, distributed learning and continuing education and the current enrolment forecast through to 2023.
Elementary Enrolment Trends
Elementary enrolment has been declining but is now starting to level off. In almost every school district, a reflective change in secondary enrolment tends to lag behind the elementary enrolment. That is because enrolment changes usually start in the lower grades and the impact is felt as students move up through secondary.
That is also the case in the Maple Ridge – Pitt Meadows School District, since the decline in elementary enrolment becomes noticeable in 2003 but the secondary enrolment decline doesn’t really start until 2007.
Over the next decade, elementary enrolment is forecasted to increase slightly each year. This increase could be almost 10% by 2023 if the current forecast materializes.
The School District currently has twenty elementary schools. The graph shows the current operating capacity of those schools relative to the elementary enrolment.
It can be seen that there was a significant drop in operating capacity in 2009 when Riverside Elementary and Mount Crescent Elementary were re-purposed.
However, there is still a significant excess capacity in elementary schools, currently 494 student spaces. Some excess capacity is expected to exist until at least 2020.
Secondary Enrolment Trends
Secondary enrolment is estimated to experience a slight increase beginning in 2016, however there is forecasted to be only minor secondary enrolment increase until 2023.
Similarly, the graph below shows that after several years of capacity increases at secondary, the capacity finally equals the enrolment in 2009.
Unfortunately, by 2010, enrolment had started to decline.
There is currently a surplus capacity in secondary and that surplus will continue in the immediate future and exist for a long time before enrolment catches up.
However, this does not mean that these schools are currently in the most appropriate location, or that they will be in the correct location for future students. Notwithstanding the excess capacity at secondary, there are currently 12 portable classrooms at Samuel Robertson Technical Secondary School.
These circumstances are not unique to the Maple Ridge – Pitt Meadows School District. However, every district is different and may choose to deal with these challenges in their own way.
