The Ministry of Education has reduced funding to Holy Trinity Catholic School Division for this year by one per cent because enrolment declined by three per cent compared to projections.
The school division had projected last March that, by Sept. 30, 2021, there would be 2,205.25 full-time equivalent (FTE) students from pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 in the division. However, by Dec. 31, that number was 2,138.50 FTE students, a decrease of three per cent.
The ministry informed Holy Trinity in December that it would decrease funding for the 2021-22 year by $241,698. The reason for this is the ministry has returned to funding school divisions based on their actual — rather than projected — enrolment.
With this adjustment, the ministry has provided Holy Trinity with $24.3 million in grant funding over the expected $24.6 million.
“The implications of that funding adjustment, we’ll be addressing that and reporting on that in the second-quarter fiscal accountability report,” Curt Van Parys, chief financial officer, told Holy Trinity trustees during their recent board meeting. “We do have at the present time that amount in unassigned budget allocations, so that almost covers off the funding shortfall.”
A decline in enrolment might not be too surprising based on research that Van Parys conducted recently.
While putting together a budget assumption report for the 2022-23 school year, he also put together a five-year outlook for the division’s finances and student numbers. The projected student numbers are based on a program called Baragar Demographics software that assists with enrolment data.
This software uses birth data from the Ministry of Health and census data from the federal government. All school divisions use this program in conjunction with local knowledge about their communities. Taking the data and local knowledge, divisions then develop enrolment projections.
Data from the software expects there to be 2,274 students in Holy Trinity this year, 2,252 youths next year, 2,278 students in 2023-24, 2,229 youths in 2024-25, 2,262 students in 2025-26 and 2,256 youths in 2026-27.
“We’ve got a fairly flatline in enrolment over the next five years … and then we see, based on the (Baragar Demographics) projection, a decline from years six through 15 in the projection model,” said Van Parys.
The Ministry of Education has identified several factors that could affect enrolment projections for the 2022-23 school year, he continued. They include:
- The federal government plans to increase immigration levels from 2021 to 2023
- Immigration to Saskatchewan is recovering from pandemic setbacks but is still about 40 per cent lower than 2019 levels
- Online enrolment decreased in 2021 but continues to be popular
- Kindergarten enrolment is lower than expected
- Pre-kindergarten enrolment increase in 2021 but is still lower than 2019
- Interest in home-based education remains high
The ministry also produced a report in October 2021 that identified some reasons why Holy Trinity did not reach its September 2021 enrolment projections:
- Pandemic impact on French immersion and kindergarten enrolments
- WHL players not attending division high schools
- Immigration level drop-offs
- The division’s COVID-19 mask policy
Holy Trinity’s staffing levels are based on projected enrolment and a pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) of 23:1 for grades 1 to 3, 26:1 in grades 4 to 6, and 28:1 in grades 7 to 12, according to a board report. Therefore, it’s possible that a decrease in students in the future could lead to fewer teachers as well.
The next Holy Trinity board meeting is Monday, Feb. 14.
