More than 1,000 extra students have signed up for fall classes in the Winnipeg School Division than administrators had anticipated.
“Our biggest challenge right now is our registration is way up,” said Matt Henderson, chief superintendent of the largest school division in the province.
“I had to open up six kindergarten classrooms (last) week because there’s kids coming from everywhere.”
JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS FILES
The Winnipeg School Division administration building in Winnipeg. 1,000 more students than administrators had anticipated have signed up for fall classes in the Winnipeg School Division.
The board office, under the leadership of the new superintendent, budgeted for 28,418 full-time equivalent students based on research on birth rates and other relevant data.
That figure surpassed 29,600 on the eve before this year’s official headcount.
Every year, the province asks schools to submit enrolment statistics from the final instructional day in September. Those figures, which will be submitted based on registration as of today, are typically used to calculate the following year’s funding.
Unexpected growth in inner-city and central Winnipeg has prompted the division to hire more teachers with wiggle-room dollars in the 2024-25 budget and reassign French-language speakers originally brought on as supply teachers.
While noting the surge comes with its challenges, the superintendent said he welcomes it and attributed the growth to a wave of immigration coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to reduce barriers to entry.
Children of the Earth High School, where teachers deliver academics alongside Indigenous cultural programs, is among the buildings that are busier than usual.
The alternative Grade 9-12 school’s population was 185 this time last year. That figure, which was the same one year earlier, has grown by about 25 pupils.
Gregg Walker, president of the local teachers association, said his colleagues “are doing an incredible job, but they can’t do it alone.”
“There is an ongoing need for more classroom supports and that both class size and responding to learning complexities are crucial to an effective education for students,” Walker said.
The union spokesman noted newcomers often require resources to address challenges related to language barriers, culture shock and trauma.
The division reported an increase of about 600 newcomers this fall. Families are settling across the division although the West End, Elmwood and northwest quadrant of the division are hot spots, Henderson said.
“There have been conflicts in different parts of the world and because of that, Manitoba in general has seen a number of newcomers,” said Reuben Garang, director of Immigration Partnership Winnipeg.
There is an ongoing influx of Ukrainian families seeking refuge here, Garang said.
The chairwoman of the Newcomer Education Coalition said the enrolment trends highlight the importance of having diverse teacher rosters and equipping staff with training to support refugees and other youth whose schooling has been interrupted.
“Equity and anti-racism training is so important. If you don’t have an understanding of the kind of situations that these students are coming from and using an equity lens (in your classroom), how do you meet the needs of these students?” said Suni Matthews, a retired principal and advocate for immigrant and refugee students.
Matthews noted that teacher workloads are changing in response to recent developments, including a transition in WSD’s ideological approach to inclusion that has resulted in students with disabilities, who had been in low-enrolment programs, moving to traditional classrooms.
That’s a “big transition” in and of itself, she said, adding she wants to hear the division’s plan to ensure newcomers, some of whom might have previously enrolled in those programs, are being supported.
In addition to partnering with settlement agencies, Henderson said the division is facilitating transitions via intercultural support workers and community support workers.
It has added English as an Additional Language teachers to a number of schools, said the superintendent, who called the growth “a good news story.”
“We’re just excited to have really full schools,” he said.
maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca
Maggie Macintosh
Education reporter
Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Free Press. Originally from Hamilton, Ont., Maggie was an intern at the Free Press twice while earning her degree at Ryerson’s School of Journalism (now Toronto Metropolitan University) before joining the newsroom as a reporter in 2019. Read more about Maggie.
Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.
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