OCDSB enrolment 1,130 students short of projections

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For the second year in a row, preliminary enrolment figures at Ottawa’s largest school board are significantly below projections.

About 1,130 fewer students than expected showed up for class in September at the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, trustees heard at a school board meeting Tuesday night.

“I want to add that it has built since the beginning of September, so that we’ve added about 700 students since that point, and our hope is that we would continue to add students,” Superintendent Shawn Lehman told trustees.

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What this means for the board’s finances will be known later in the year when revised budget estimates are released.

Projected enrolments are based on factors such as new housing, projected growth in some neighbourhoods and the board’s “market share” compared to the Ottawa Catholic School Board and the two French-language boards.

Secondary school enrolments have been very close to projections, but there has been a notable decline in anticipated OCDSB kindergarten enrolments this year. The preliminary figures found 750 fewer kindergarten enrolments than expected. The decline in enrolments was spread out and not concentrated in any particular parts of the city, trustees heard.

When enrolments are lower than expected, teachers and students are shuffled at some schools in September, sometimes creating split classes. Some classes are combined and teachers and other education workers are moved to other classes or schools.

As a result of the drop in enrolment this year, reorganization is taking place this week, said Lehman. As of Friday, all students in elementary classes will be with their new teacher.

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Last year, preliminary student enrolment in early October was about 1,600 students lower than expected, resulting in some shuffling of classes. As of late January, the gap between projected and actual enrolments had dwindled to about 700 students.

About 70 full-time-equivalent teacher positions were eliminated in elementary schools last year because of the gap between projections and actual enrolments, but since all of the positions had been filled by occasional teachers, no permanent staff were laid off. Because secondary enrolment increased, 20 more high school teachers were hired.

Most provincial funding is tied directly to average daily enrolment, known as ADE. School boards are required to submit annual estimates to the Ministry of Education by the end of June, with revisions after school starts in September.

Randy Gerrior, the OCDSB’s associate director for business, said the financial ramifications of reduced enrolment have not yet been calculated, but it will be part of the revised budget estimates.

“It’s also a reduction in the number of teachers we have, so it’s not a straight-line number, but it will have a significant impact on our revised estimates,” said Gerrior. A number of other budget pieces are also still up in the air, including changes to provincial funding formulas.

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There’s also the question of what reorganization will look like if large numbers of students appear. If enrolment starts to build in certain pockets of the city, staff will be added, including support staff, said Lehman.

“Sometimes we add classroom-based staff, sometimes we add support staff,” he told trustees. “It might not be a full classroom, it might be a learning resource teacher that is added, or it may be another teacher at half time.”

In 2023, the funding gap between expected growth in enrolment and actual enrolment was $15 million on a total budget of $1.1 billion. However, much of that was expected to be absorbed as teachers left or retired.

Senior administrators said they had a few theories of what was happening, but that was based on anecdotal evidence.

Families may be hoping to access the program they want at a community school, but have to go to another school to get the program they want, said director of education Pino Buffone. That issue feeds into a sweeping review of elementary programs that will continue this year and into next that aims to see as many students as possible remain in their neighbourhood schools.

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Feedback from principals and staff about the reasons for falling enrolments have not been consistent, said Lehman.

“There’s some feedback based around families moving out of communities because of financial challenges,” he said.

This is the second year that enrolment numbers have been off projections, and there’s a need to understand why families are opting not to enrol in OCDSB schools, said Trustee Cathryne Millburn.

“If we go into the next year with the elementary program review currently underway and we see another reduction in our enrolment off of our estimates, I’m worried that this is going to be a trend, and I think we need to get ahead of it as best we can,” she said.

“I understand that we can’t magically appear in people’s houses and ask then why they didn’t enrol in OCDSB. But I think we have to put some thinking into how we’re going to reach out to figure out why people don’t enrol.”

Buffone said Millburn has raised a good point that something as comprehensive as the elementary program review will raise questions from the public.

“But I don’t sense that as a sole factor. It’s probably a combination of factors.”

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So far, the OCDSB has taken an informal approach to asking questions, but it might be time to look at actual enrolments compared to projected enrolments at other public school boards in the province, said Lehman.

At this point, it’s unclear where families are opting to enroll.

On Wednesday, spokespeople for the Ottawa Catholic School Board and Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est (French-Catholic school board) said they will be releasing enrolment figures on Oct 31.

The Conseil des écoles publiques de l’Est de l’Ontario (French public board) said its enrolment currently stands at over 18,000 students, above the number of students the board projected it would see this year.

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