Student overflow spills into even more portables as enrolment surges in southeast N.B.
Districts with schools in Moncton region expect 1,800 more students than last September
Surging school enrolment driven by record-setting population growth will see an increasing number of students in southeast New Brunswick heading to class in trailers.
Two school districts serving the Moncton region say enrolment has increased by about 1,800 students from last September, filling up even new schools faster than planned.
The growth has led to school districts reconfiguring grades and catchment boundaries, using staff rooms and other spaces as classrooms and asking the province to build new schools.
Anglophone East School District expects 18,993 students this week, up almost 1,000 from a year ago. It projects to have more than 22,000 in three to four years.
Randolph MacLean, superintendent of Anglophone East, said in an interview the district has made various changes to address the growth.
Seventeen new portable classrooms were being set up last week to add space at full schools in addition to the 65 it already had.
He said the district will need nine new schools and is awaiting word from the province. However, he struck an upbeat tone.
"Will there be challenges? No, there will be opportunities and we'll continue to get creative," MacLean said.
In Francophone South, officials expect 16,924 students, up 819 from last fall.
"So that's quite a lot for us," Monique Boudreau, the francophone district's superintendent, said.
It's the second year with significant growth and it's above the normal level of about 300 new students per year.
That district is much larger and includes the Moncton, Miramichi, Fredericton, Woodstock, Saint John and St. Stephen regions. Boudreau said they're seeing the most growth in the Moncton area.
It's a region where for years the province has opened new schools that are almost immediately full and require portable classrooms.
Despite the recurring history, the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development said in statement Friday the challenge for determining the size of new schools in the region "is the level of unforeseen enrolment growth and the timelines involved between when school designs are set and construction is completed."
CBC requested an interview with Education Minister Bill Hogan for this story starting last Wednesday, but no interview was provided. No reason was given for why Hogan wasn't available.
Spokesperson Diana Chávez said the department is aware of the substantial increase in enrolment for the upcoming school year and officials are discussing it with school districts.
École Claudette-Bradshaw, a new francophone elementary school with a capacity of 630 students, is opening this fall in Moncton.
Boudreau said it will take some of the pressure off other full schools like École Le Sommet. Some of that school's portables are being removed this school year.
However, Boudreau said growing enrolment means the new school will now be full faster than expected.
"We thought it would be OK for a couple of years," Boudreau said. "But as the way it's going now, we're not sure. Maybe we'll be OK for a couple of years, but they will have to look closely at that situation."
Work was continuing to get portables ready at several anglophone schools last week.
Moncton High School, a large anglophone school opened in 2015, will have 16 portable classrooms this year.
Shediac Cape School will have 10 portables. MacLean said enrolment at that school has grown by about 200 in recent years. He said about 500 students are enrolled this fall.
The province has approved a replacement school, but site selection is still underway and MacLean said its doors likely won't be open for four more years.
The growth has also created a need for more staff.
MacLean said last week the district had fewer than 10 positions to fill.
"We will have an adult, a teacher, in every classroom next week because we're closing that gap rapidly," MacLean said.
Boudreau said Francophone South had filled 24 or 25 vacant teaching positions as of Friday.
However, both said recruitment is still underway for various roles.
Both districts say the growth can largely be attributed to children of newcomers to Canada.
"It's fun to see those immigrants, lots of immigrants coming in, but it is challenging, though, to try to prepare and be ready for the start of the school year when we have overflows in schools," Boudreau said.
"So our majority of enrolment new growth is new Canadians, but at the same time, we have a sizeable - one third - of our population of Canadians that are relocating," MacLean said.
New Brunswick has seen record-setting population growth.
The province had an estimated 831,618 people as of April 1, Statistics Canada reported. That's up from 802,862 a year earlier.
Sébastien Lavoie, an analyst at the Centre for Demography at Statistics Canada, said in a July interview that the province is on track to pass one million people within a decade if current trends continue.
"It's kind of, in a way, a little incredible over the last two years that almost every single quarter showed more growth in one quarter than what was typically seen in a whole year 10 years ago," Lavoie said.
Much of the current increase has been driven by permanent immigrants and non-permanent immigrants, which include those with a study or work permit.
About a third of the growth, however, is from people moving to New Brunswick from other parts of Canada.
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