LKDSB in Sarnia. Blackburn News file photo. LKDSB in Sarnia. Blackburn News file photo.
Sarnia

Decline in LKDSB enrollment expected to be a blip

The Lambton Kent District School Board (LKDSB) will receive a funding boost for the 2021-2022 school year.

Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP Monte McNaughton previously announced that the LKDSB would receive $266.8 million for the next school year, which is an increase of $8.1 million over last year. The funding is part of a $2 billion provincial investment through the Grants for Student Needs (GSN) program.

Prior to the funding announcement, the school board was anticipating a slight cut in funding due to more children learning from home.

The school board recently released details of the 2021 Capital Plan. Enrollment has decreased at both the elementary and secondary school levels due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, that's not expected to be an ongoing trend.

Superintendent Mark Sherman said he expects students to return to in-person learning in the near future as COVID-19 cases continue to drop. Vaccine eligibility also recently expanded to include children aged 12 and older.

"It's kind of a one-year blip, we imagine," he said. "Depending on how conditions rollout and the ability to get vaccines for the younger children, I think those people will naturally come back to us. It's a tough process for parents to raise their children and do the schooling on top of that."

A report states that there were 20,918 students enrolled in 2020-2021, which is an 11.6 per cent decline in the student population over the past 10 years.

If a decline in enrollment continues, long-term projections could affect academic and extra-curricular programming.

It's projected that elementary schools will be at 75 per cent capacity in September and high schools will be at 65 per cent capacity. It's also projected that enrollment will continue to decline by 256 elementary students by 2031, and enrollment at the secondary level is projected to decrease by 321 students.

The numbers may seem stark but Sherman said compared to past years, enrollment projections are "pretty good".

"We suffered some big declines over the last 10 to 15 years," he said. "If you look at the next five years -- possibly 10-year projections -- we're actually kind of stabilizing."

He also said in the long run, he wouldn't be surprised if there were enrollment increases.

Sherman said the good news aspect of the Capital Plan is that by comparison, enrollment projections are relatively stable so a drastic change in funding is not anticipated. The "tough" aspect the school board is facing is that talks about future consolidations cannot take place due to a moratorium that was imposed in 2019.

"We do have an issue in South Kent with our small high schools... they're going to be very expensive to repair in the next five or 10 years. With the small [number] of enrollments they have, we really need the board to look at school consolidation and building a brand new building that will last into the future," he said. "So certainly from a board perspective, we would look forward to that moratorium coming off."

The complete 2021 Capital Plan can be found by clicking, here.

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