School District 58 has exceeded its enrolment projections for the current school year.

At the first school board meeting of the year on Sept. 18, superintendent Bob Peacock said the district has 1,142 students at the elementary level — 43 students above its projection of 1,099.

At the high school level, SD58 projected 809 students, which it surpassed by eight students.

Enrolment in distance education programs, for students who take courses by correspondence or outside of a traditional classroom setting, sits at 100 students — well above the projected 65.

However, in the alternate program, the district’s enrolment fell from a projected 82 students this year to 62.

“We tend to pick up more students from now until the end of September, mainly because those students take a while to get back to school,” Peacock told the school board.

Peacock told the Herald Merritt Secondary School has about 635 of Merritt’s 1,584 students. In Princeton, the district met its projection of 437 students, Peacock said.

Peacock said the higher number of enrolled students won’t translate into more money for the school district because any extra funding for more students would take away from the district’s funding protection.

He added it’s always good to have more students in the system.

Learning improvement funds

The school board also heard the process for distributing the district’s $311,007 in learning improvement funds, which is annual funding from the Ministry of Education.

School principals submit spending proposals to the superintendent who drafts a spending plan, consults with local unions, and then presents the plan to the school board.

Peacock said $39,936 is expected to go to certified educational assistants (CEAs) and the remaining $271,071 will be allocated to schools.

Peacock said tentatively $162,560 will be added for extra teaching staff, $19,500 will be added to fund teacher release time and $73,620 will be used for extra classroom support such as CEAs for kindergarten and Grade 1 classes.

The remaining funds will be retained for next semester, Peacock said.

“In the second semester, we’ll look at the configurations that have taken place to see where support is needed for the remaining dollars,” Peacock told the Herald.