Immigration is boosting enrolment in four of Saskatchewan’s urban school divisions and continuing to drive the need for more English as an additional language support, educators say.
Regina Public Schools said its enrolment stood at 26,259 at the end of September – 864 more students than in September 2022.
The Regina public division said its Newcomer Welcome Centre – which assesses students new to Canada on their reading, writing and math skills – has already registered more than 900 students so far this fall. That’s more than half of the 1,600 students it helped last school year.
Gisele Carlson, English as an additional language co-ordinator for Regina Public Schools, said these are the highest numbers the centre has seen in the past decade.
Regina Catholic Schools is also seeing an increase in students this year. It had 13,270 students as of September 30 – 916 more than last year.
A spokesperson said the division doesn’t have a breakdown of newcomer students at this time, but anecdotally, “the number is unusually high.
To keep up with demand and avoid a backlog in Regina Public Schools, Carlson said her team has occasionally had to pull EAL teachers out of schools to help with assessments.
“The assessment is important to give teachers some information about the student before they come in so they know what kind of support might be needed,” Carlson said.
“The whole process is really about supporting families and helping them understand so they can make the best decisions for their children.”
Gurpreet Kaur says two of her children benefited from an assessment after they recently moved here from India.
She and her husband arrived in Regina from New Delhi last month with their three children. About a week later – after coordinating with the Regina Open Door Society, which the centre also works with – her two oldest children came in for an assessment and were able to get some questions answered about everyday life in Saskatchewan.
“They gave me the knowledge of everything so I can do this,” Kaur said with a smile.
Saskatoon schools are also seeing an increase in enrolment this year. Saskatoon Public Schools had 28,256 students as of Sept. 30 – an increase of 1,078 students compared to September 2022. Saskatoon Greater Catholic Schools had 22,089 students, an increase of 1,590 from last year.
Saskatoon Public said its Newcomer Student Centre has already assessed 732 students so far this school year.
The Saskatoon Catholic division said its Newcomer Welcome Centre has assessed 551 students this year.
“Families new to Canada continue to be a significant factor in overall growth, accounting for 1,495 students,” the division said in a news release early last month.
Carlson said Regina Public has at least one EAL teacher in all eight of its high schools, but only 15 in its 44 elementary schools. She’d like to see at least five more hired.
“A couple of years ago, during COVID, we were pretty confident that we had a good level of support. But since then we’ve had a huge increase [in newcomer enrolments] and we haven’t been able to increase the EAL support, so that falls on the classroom teachers,” Carlson said.
“I’m confident that teachers are doing the best they can. But a student who needs English support may be struggling a little bit, may be doing more homework at home, may be doing more work on their own, or may be asking their friends for help.”
The Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation said it’s hearing about similar situations from school divisions across the province.
Union president Samantha Becotte said the most recent government data shared with the federation, from 2021, shows there is roughly one English as an additional language teacher for every 140 EAL students.
However, she noted that the ratio is likely to be more dramatic today.
“That means less support for classroom teachers supporting English as an additional language students, and less time for those students to get the support they need,” Becotte said.
The association’s latest bargaining proposal to the province includes a request for more money to hire more EAL teachers, she said.
In an emailed statement, the Ministry of Education said it’s still reviewing and verifying the enrolment data it received from school divisions at the end of September.
The ministry also pointed to the $40 million funding boost it gave divisions last June, which it said was “to support enrolment growth and the complexity of today’s classrooms”.
