Wednesday January 29, 2020 ~ LANGFORD [Updated March 2, 2020 with poster about the March 12 event, see bottom of this page]
by Mary Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
The two new schools for West Langford — one elementary and one middle — will have their designs and names unveiled at an open house on Thursday March 12.
The public evening event starts at 6:30 pm, being hosted by the Sooke School District 62 (SD62) at Belmont Secondary School, 3143 Langford Lake Road.
The announcement about the open house was made with some appropriate excitement by SD62 Superintendent Scott Stinson at the SD62 public board meeting on Tuesday evening, January 28. There are many facets being coordinated to bring together two new schools that are set to open in September 2022.
Parents, families and community who attend the open house will also hear about the catchment review process that SD62 is undertaking.
The resorting of catchment areas is largely due to the steady influx of students to the school district area which has schools in Langford, Colwood and Sooke which are all fast-growing communities on the west shore of Vancouver Island. This potentially means that the boundaries in neighbourhoods which are associated with specific schools may change.
Associate Superintendent Paul Block presented some preliminary student population growth numbers at the board meeting last night. He expects an increase of 411 students in September for the 2020-2021 academic year compared to the current 2019-2020 academic year.
This year’s student population in SD62 is 11,142 with an expected 11,733 in 2020-2021. The growth apparently will be comprised of modest growth in elementary (Kindergarten to Grade 5), significant growth in middle school (Grades 6 to 8), and continuing growth in the secondary schools (Grades 9 to 12), said Block in his verbal report.
Block revealed that last year’s forecasted projection for student numbers in 2019-2020 was off by about 200 students. That means growth of the school district population is slowing, but still significant, with the 411 expected for this coming September.
“It’s another banner year for Kindergarten registration,” says Paul Block. Kindergarten registration for September 2020 is only part way through its cycle this week (January 27 to 31 registration online at www.sd62.bc.ca), but including the registrations for Nature Kindergarten and French Immersion so far the count is 788 new Kindergarten students for September 2020. The final count is expected to reach about 860 by the end of this week.
===== NEW POSTER about the March 12, 2020 open house:
