Superintendent of Corporate Services Cheri Carter had some good news for Avon Maitland District School Board trustees at this week's board meeting.
Carter said they knew from last year that enrollment would be up this year.
"But with the new 2021 census data, it shows some significant increases in elementary and secondary. So this is a 10 year projection, so right now if all things were to stay the same, we'd be looking at maybe another 1,200kids in the elementary panel and another 700 kids in the secondary panel,” said Carter. Currently, the AMDSB has 10,550 elementary students and 4,932 secondary students.
Carter said the big surprise was in the secondary panel. She says after declining enrollment for a few years, the elementary panel has levelled off.
“Increasing the last couple of years for sure and that's going to continue for us. And now that decline we felt in secondary has kind of moved its way it's way through and we actually have hit the low and we're swinging back up on the positive again, which we saw for this current fiscal year and now we can see the projections are saying the same,” she added.
Carter said Listowel and Stratford continue to be the two biggest growth areas. But she says there's also a corridor in North Huron through Wingham and Howick that they're excited about. Carter says they do have space for most of those students but they are feeling some pressure in the Listowel area. She explained a boundary review that was conducted last year gave them a little wiggle room there and they are buying some portables for that area, but they still have more work to do there.