The London District Catholic School Board is seeing a spike in elementary enrollment, and will be investing in staff and classrooms to help deal with the influx.
The Board of Trustees approved a preliminary operating budget for the 2018-19 school year during a meeting Monday, with expenditures over $262 million.
Jacquie Davison, the school board’s superintendent of business, says the board expects 451 more students next year, a significant increase from the declining numbers in recent years.
Davison tells 980 CFPL that means it will be hiring more teachers and other staff members.
“Not just teachers, but also librarians and other support personnel as well — EAs, early childhood educators, etc. The challenge with hiring the teachers is that we also have a number of retirements, so we also need to hire teachers to replace the teachers who are retiring. It’s a really good time to be looking for a job if you are a teacher,” Davison said.
She says the board expects to have more than 20,000 students.
“Between October and May of this year, we had 95 elementary students come from other countries. We had 25 from other provinces, and then we have 128 students from other catholic school boards,” Davison said.
The school board will be adding at least 26 more portables for the next school year, which Davidson says is temporary.
“We are looking at a new school in North London that will hopefully relieve some of the need for that accommodation.”
The board is anticipating a modest surplus of $485,000 for the next school year, after additional investments in staffing and learning environments.
The full breakdown of the board’s expenses and plan is available online at www.ldcsb.ca.
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