File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Adam Donnelly

SCHOOL DISTRICT 73

Enrolment up slightly in SD73

Oct 8, 2019 | 4:07 PM

KAMLOOPS — Stretching from Blue River in the north to Logan Lake in the southwest, School District 73 covers more than 27,000 square kilometers and has averaged more than 14,000 students for the past several years. Across the district this school year, enrolment numbers are up.

According to Bill Hamblett, Assistant Superintendent in charge of secondary schools, there are an additional 230 students enrolled in schools, mostly through the city of Kamloops.

“Primarily on the South Shore, southwest corridor and Valleyview east. The rural schools are holding their own,” Hamblett told CFJC Today. “The growth has been primarily in those areas, as well as Brock Middle. Not everyone shows up where we thought they would.”

Hamblett says the district has also added some staff to deal with the new numbers but added those extra students are built into a school’s contingency plan.

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“We added four staff in the elementary division, and every school plans to have extra kids,” Hamblett explained. “When you have those larger schools, you have efficiencies.”

The district has also added more portables at Valleyview and Sahali Secondary schools, as well as at Brock Middle School. Hamblett says those extra bodies can cause stress to the facilities they’re in.

“When you’re over-capacity in any school, whether it’s Sahali or Valleyview, you have some issues. Not within the classrooms themselves. It’s those common areas — the hallways, gym time, library time, computer space time — those are the overcrowding issues we see.”