New schools in Saskatoon's Hampton Village, Stonebridge will restrict student enrolment
Saskatoon Public worried new schools will be at-capacity in just a few years
Two new schools in Saskatoon will have restrictions on student enrolment when they open in September.
Chief Whitecap School and Ernest Lindner School will only allow students living in the neighbourhoods of Stonebridge and Hampton Village, respectively, to register.
"In both the Hampton Village community and the Stonebridge community, the population is extremely dense," said superintendent of education Charlene Scrimshaw.
"When we build a school in a community that has gone without a school for a number of years, the intention is to really serve the community in which the school is being built."
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Scrimshaw worries that both schools will be completely filled just a few years after they open. Birth records from the Saskatoon Health Region show there could be up to 100 kindergarten students in the Stonebridge neighbourhood when the school opens.
"We know that both of those schools are going to be at-capacity in the very near future," she said. "We need to make sure there is room in those schools."
This isn't the first time Saskatoon Public Schools has instituted closed boundaries. Dundonald School has restricted enrolment for a number of years to deal with high numbers of children in the Hampton Village neighbourhood.
Few complaints
While restricting student enrolment might sound like a controversial idea, Scrimshaw said she hasn't received many complaints from parents.
"I know we've had a couple of families who have requested to enrol at the Chief Whitecap School who live outside of the boundary," she said. "We've talked to them about the realities of the enrolment over the next few years, and it's been understood and accepted."
Scrimshaw said Saskatoon Public Schools isn't planning on placing restrictions on any other schools.
Two other new schools set to open in the city, Sylvia Fedoruk School in Evergreen and Colette Bourgonje School in Rosewood, will not have enrolment restrictions.