'Bursting at the seams': Schools in Nanaimo, West Shore surpass capacity
Nicholas Beaudoin is a teacher at École John Stubbs Memorial School in Colwood, one of 29 schools in the Sooke School District.
Beaudoin has done the math and expects his classroom to be at a full capacity with 28 students when the school year begins on Tuesday.
“This is my first homeroom class, but I’m incredibly excited,” Beaudoin said.
Teachers across the entire Sooke School District will likely be teaching full classrooms.
Superintendent Scott Stinson says the district has 100 more students enrolled than expected, 750 more than last year.
“[We are at] 112 per cent capacity across the district,” he says.
The excess numbers have forced the district to move and buy portables for various schools, including at Royal Bay Secondary.
It’s an expense of $1.4 million, and a source of frustration for the district.
“It’s the amount of money that we're putting into portables rather than into the classroom, and you know if that $1.4 million could have gone into the classroom. Rather than purchasing temporary space, it would be a great thing for kids,” he says.
The booming population on the West Shore is expected to continue putting extra strain on staff and resources.
“Next year, and the year after that are going to be big challenges for us,” says Stinson. “It’s going to have some big costs and challenges for us.”
In Nanaimo, there are also more students than predicted, and high schools are getting hit the hardest.
The most crowded of all is Nanaimo District Secondary School, where the district’s secretary treasurer, Mark Walsh, says international enrollment has been capped and the situation is at a crisis point.
“NDSS is bursting at the seams,” said Walsh. “We’ve put two portables there… that’s to go with the portables they already have. It’s built for 1,400 [students]. We're going to be upwards of 1700 at the end of the day,”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Prince William and Kate release photo of daughter Charlotte to mark ninth birthday
Prince William and his wife Kate released a picture of their daughter Charlotte to mark the princess's ninth birthday on Thursday.
Weight-loss drug Wegovy available in Canada starting May 6
The makers of Ozempic say their weight-loss drug Wegovy will be available to patients in Canada starting Monday.
Five human skeletons, missing hands and feet, found outside house of Nazi leader Hermann Goring
Archeologists have unearthed the skeletons of five people, missing their hands and feet, at a former Nazi military base in Poland.
NEW A mother's hopes to free her son from a Syrian prison is revitalized by a new human rights report
Just days before the seventh anniversary of the day Jack Letts was thrown in prison with thousands of suspected ISIS fighters, his mother, Sally Lane, delivered a small stack of envelopes to the headquarters of Global Affairs Canada in Ottawa.
NEW Companies letting customers opt out of Mother's Day ads
In an effort to balance the profitability of Mother's Day with the pain it causes some people, some brands are offering customers the choice to opt out of Mother's Day email advertising.
DEVELOPING Police begin removing barricades at a pro-Palestinian demonstrators' encampment at UCLA
Police removed barricades and began dismantling a pro-Palestinian demonstrators’ fortified encampment early Thursday at the UCLA campus after hundreds of protesters defied police orders to leave, about 24 hours after counter-protesters attacked a tent encampment on the campus.
Dental care program accepting claims for 1 million seniors
Citizens' Services Minister Terry Beech says 1,200 seniors have already visited a dentist and had their claims processed by the federal government's new dental care plan.
Concerns about Plexiglass prompt inspections at some Loblaws locations in Ottawa
Inspections are underway at more than one Loblaws location in Ottawa after complaints were filed about tall Plexiglass barriers.
NEW Facial reconstruction reveals what a 40-something Neanderthal woman may have looked like
Scientists studying a Neanderthal woman's remains have painstakingly pieced together her skull from 200 bone fragments to understand what she may have looked like.