'The growth is a challenge': West Shore schools struggle with rapid enrolment growth

The Sooke School District released its enrolment numbers on Tuesday, showing its pace of growth hasn’t slowed down, adding 680 new students this year.

“The growth is a challenge for us to manage on an ongoing basis,” said Sooke School District superintendent Scott Stinson.

In order to accommodate all that growth, the district has repurposed music rooms and breakout spaces into classrooms. It says there is no more space to convert.

Portables have been brought in all over the district and, in the some cases, students who can’t get into their catchment schools are attending different schools far away from their neighbourhoods.

As a stopgap measure, the province did announce last week that some relief is on its way.

Both Ruth King Elementary School and David Cameron Elementary School will see a 190-seat expansion.

“That will take a lot of pressure off of us in the short term but we still need to make sure we are building new schools to accommodate this growth that we’re going to see in the next many years in this school district,” said Stinson.

The West Shore continues to be one of the fastest growing municipalities in the province and that has the school district renewing its call to the province for new schools.

The ask: two new elementary schools and one new high school.

“Our numbers for students requiring English language support have skyrocketed over the last number of years,” said Stinson.

This year alone, 284 new students came to the SD62 needing English language support. That is the fastest rate of growth per capita in the province.

Adding to that dynamic student growth, the number of students who need to be supported through inclusive education services has grown significantly by 554 children.

“We are finding that inclusive education now is becoming one of the hardest areas to recruit for, along with French immersion,” said Stinson. “So those additional supports to students are becoming harder and harder to come by.”

The school district is under pressure on many fronts. It has now made its ask for more funding from the province and is waiting on a response from the ministry. That is expected to happen in March.