It's an education story because it helps explain declining enrolment and the gentle, slow rebound from its impact that is going to start to happen within the next 10 years. For the last decade (many boards' enrolments peaked in 1999-2000), all but five GTA-area boards have been facing declining enrolment-- meaning more students are graduating from high school that are coming into the school system from the bottom end in JK, SK or Grade 1. This demographic situation is tied to all sorts of reasons, but mostly because the children of baby boomers (the baby boom echo) are leaving schools and the GenX'ers and GenY'ers (like me) aren't having the same number of children. In my own defence, it's hard to have kids when you're single.
When those boom-echo kids start having kids -- which is starting to happen -- then the school populations will rebound with the boom-echo's echo. However echos are always smaller than the ones that preceded them.
Quick aside, the five GTA-area boards whose populations are still growing owe that to immigration and migration, as populations shift into their districts from elsewhere.
Long story short: an uptick in the fertility rate two years ago in 2007 in Ontario means the school-age population should see the same uptick starting in two years when these parents start sending their kids to JK. That uptick should become quite obvious in three to four years as those bambinis start Grade 1.
I only wish the data StatsCan provided for free included a breakdown by census tracts (large urban neighbourhoods) or dissemination areas (smaller communities), so we could see where these children are being born. School board and municipal demographers have access to this info however.
H/T to Rob at Cancrime, whose tweet earlier this week inspired this post.
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8 comments:
Hugo-I wonder if the board will share any of this info with you or any reporter?
It would be interesting as you say where are the births,I know in Virgil,Onatrio there has been a boom
in JK.
cheers
Paolo
Interesting stuff for sure.
In addition to Paolo's question as to whether boards would share this info. with folks I also wonder if as a province this upswing is being planned for, OR, are we making mistakes by only looking a short term solutions like closing schools.
This may be a lifeline for that Niagara school community - if they knew about it and if they knew how to use the info. through public media and profile.
Um, the boards only access the same info StatsCan releases. It's public. Just they pay for it. What's online is free. If you wanted to pay for it, you could.
As to closures-- no board should be closing in the short-term. HOWEVER, let's remember these "echos" are always going to be smaller. While our fertility rate is climbing, it's still well below a "replacement rate" in which every fertile woman has enough kids to replace herself and the children's father.
Saving NDSS (or any similar school) would require an immediate infusion of +20 kids per grade (at least) in Grades 4-8 today. Not in nine years.
Despite an isolated blip here or there (which can be anticipated and should be planned for), student populations are not going to rebound to the highs seen in the late 1990s. It's just not gonna happen unless you, and I, and everyone else out there starts having many more children. Even if we do, we'd have to start yesterday, or, about four years ago. Or, we increase immigration and force it to go to those communities in decline.
That said, a good demographer can look at a subdivision plan and tell you within a handful how many school-aged kids are going to pop out of those houses. If boards don't have access to a good demographer, they plan at their peril.
Hugo
Right ER - not to mention the unknowns that contribute to fluctuations in population - like plant/manufacturer closers.
Ok - will take issue with the comment, ER, that in the short term no schools should be closed. When we did our forecasts out to 2019, this mini-rebound was predicted, and factored in to all of the data that was shared with our communities. The impact is a very small increase in school populations in elementary schools, leading to a levelling off of school enrolments in elementary at about their current level, or slightly lower/higher depending on the community. Thus planning decisions made on current enrolments would be pretty good, and boards would be fully justified in making them now. Secondary has yet to feel the full impact of the declining enrolments that elementary have been experiencing now for some time, and will continue to drop very steeply, levelling off sometime toward the middle of the next decade as the mini-boom stabilizes their enrolments. Thus secondary schools (such as Niagara) have yet to see what declining enrolment fully looks like, and will be subject to increasing pressures over the next six years.
Ooops. Typed that one too quickly. I meant to say school boards shouldn't be closing schools with only SHORT-TERM impacts in mind. I would never suggest boards don't close schools in the short-term, as that would put me perilously close to agreeing with the Community Schools Alliance's stance and would contradict several posts and postulations I've made in this space...
Hugo
Am I the only one wondering why a school board would pay for information when as you say, it's free?
The 30,000-foot, bird's eye view data is free. The detailed, local info is a fee-based service from StatsCan.
Hugo
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