Student enrolment has been forecasted to decline for School District 57

By Tommy Osborne

Student enrolment

SD57 student enrolment projected to drop over the next decade

Jan 31, 2025 | 4:16 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – School District 57 (SD57) has projected its student population to decline over the course of the next decade, with some schools like Mackenzie possibly losing a quarter of its student population.

Student projections for the next decade. Courtesy SD57

These findings were presented at the District’s Committee of the whole meeting, where the Long Range Facility Plan was presented. Student enrolment was one of several topics discussed, and while the numbers may be concerning, SD57 School Board Chair Craig Brennan says he isn’t concerned with what may or may not happen ten years later.

“When you see the numbers in the report, it’s important to realize those aren’t actually the numbers we’re going to be dealing with. They’re the best guess. The best way to compare it is if you look back at the last time this report was done, not all the guesses were great, and certainly a lot of the recommendations never happened. So all the recommendations we’re going to look at, especially based around enrolment, will be using the report as sort of a backbone. And then our numbers will be what actually drives the budget,” Brennan said.

Is there any concern regarding funding, given this forecasted drop in students? Funding for a school district is based on the amount of students it has, but Brennan emphasized he isn’t going to speculate on what could potentially happen ten years later, but rather focus on the information he has now.

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“The budget that we develop over the coming months will be based on the students that we predict. The prediction that we will use for the budget will be very close, we’re good at that work one year out. But when you start to look two years, five years, ten years, your guessing is just guessing. It’s helpful in terms of planning, for sure, but that’s very much long range planning. The planning that we’re talking about at the board table is the things that are right in front of us,” Brennan said.

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