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Squamish school district numbers up

Unlike many other communities, Squamish has more students
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Unlike many school districts in B.C., the Sea to Sky is again attracting more students into its classrooms. 

The district has been bucking a trend in recent years, as B.C. had been facing a decline in public school enrolment for about 20 years. The Ministry of Education reported a turnaround earlier this year.

“This is just today’s snapshot,” she explained.

One program attracting an increasing number of students within the Sea to Sky School District has been French immersion.

“We are up 142 French immersion students over last year,” Langlois said.

This is part of a growing trend toward French immersion programs in the province, according to the organization Canadian Parents for French BC & Yukon. 

In a recent release, the organization pointed out the program has been growing for the last 18 years and that School District No. 48 was ahead of the B.C. average. 

Based on last year’s count, 9.5 per cent of students in the province were enrolled in immersion programs compared with an average of 16.6 in Sea to Sky public schools.

“French immersion is a well-tested and well-established program delivery model. In fact, this made-in-Canada program has been studied and replicated around the world – largely to preserve and protect native or minority languages,” Canadian Parents for French BC & Yukon president Patti Holm said in the news release.

Some of the French immersion increase, Langlois pointed out, is a result of schools adding more grades to the program.

The international student program for School District No. 48 also saw a slight increase with an increase of 11 students over 2015’s figure.

While there was growth throughout the district, much is happening in the Squamish area, with 130 more students in the schools.

“We’ve got the most schools here, and that’s definitely where we’re seeing the growth,” Langlois said.
Pemberton saw a slight drop in enrolment while Whistler was up by 58 students.

The enrolment increase in Squamish, however, is not consistent from school to school.

“Garibaldi Highlands is definitely the one where we saw the most growth,” Langlois said.

“This is considerably more than what we expected to see.”

Trustee Ian Kent asked what the ramifications of enrolment would be on space within schools. Langlois responded that some have space while others are getting tight, though she pointed out in some cases, such as Brackendale Elementary, the issue has to do with how school classes are configured.

Kent also asked about out-of-catchment area requests for students, to which Langlois replied the district had faced no problems in terms of students not being able to attend their school of choice.

“As of right now, everybody got to go where they wanted to go,” she said.

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