Northern Lights Public Schools (NLPS) preliminary enrolment numbers are close to their predictions.
Associate superintendent Bill Driedger discussed the figures submitted by schools during a board of trustees meeting earlier this month.
"This data goes beyond PowerSchool, and the reason we need that is a student might be registered with us and might have moved away from the area, but they will stay within our system until someone requests information to come out of there," he explained. "We have to go beyond getting our information that way."
As of Sept. 18, the local public school division's preliminary count is 5,951 students across the district, just 31 shy of the 5,982 they projected in May. It's also just 38 less than last year's official count of 5,989 students.
Driedger referred to the current numbers as 'bums in seats,' meaning the students counted for are in their system.
"We do have occasions where we would have a student or two that's verified in the system to be coming to a school that might be absent still, either due to an illness, vacation, or whatever the case may be. As of right now, these are fairly accurate numbers as to what's actually happening in our system. At the same time, I do want to mention that they're changing everyday"
School districts in Alberta are required to conduct their final count Sept. 30, in order to submit those numbers to the provincial government for funding allocations.
"Sometimes it's a little frustrating, because you like to have an exact number, but that's not really the way education works. By Sept. 30, we have that exact information because that then leads to our funding that we get as a system," he explained.
When comparing their preliminary enrolment amount over the past four years, Driedger noted the variance is less than half a per cent.
"I always find that kind of surprising, and in my previous life, I saw numbers go up and down a little bit more. It's fairly flat and consistent overall as a system," he exclaimed, adding some of their schools have seen their numbers increase while others have seen a drop.
Board trustee Debra Lozinski believes that reflects positively on the division.
"When you look at rural boards across the province, they're shrinking and shrinking fast. For us to retain primarily all of our students, or hold our numbers, I think that's a very positive thing for us."
After conducting a review of their outreach school processes, a change was implemented that made it easier to know how many students are registered at those education facilities.
"Recognizing that outreach is different than a traditional school, they have done that and it's much easier to ascertain what we have in our system at this point in time for who's actually attending... In the past, if you were to ask us this early in the school year, we would have said, 'well, we have about half of them there, and we're expecting about' how many the case may be. We have a much more accurate number. That number can still grow on us, of course, outreach is that one where we still see things happened in September," stated Driedger.
Ahead of the official count on Sept. 30, NLPS had a lot of work to do.
"We have to make sure that all the registration information that we get from parents is sufficient, because at times, if you don't have certain data in there, Alberta Education will look at you and say, 'I'm sorry, we need more from you in order for you to get funding,'" Driedger explained. "We work really hard with our schools, and our school administration assistants do a fantastic job in helping us out with this piece, because it's getting more and more critical here as well to make sure that we get our funding."
