Thousands of Calgary Catholic School District students head back to class
As summer winds down, tens of thousands of students in Calgary and its surrounding communities are heading back to school.
Tuesday marks the beginning of a staggered return to class for Calgary Catholic School District (CCSD) students.
Glenn Johnston, principal of Holy Name School, says it’s the best day of the year.
"It's the excitement in the air. New beginnings, new grade for all the students. In some cases, a new school for them, so it's just an exciting time."
Marjorie Junio-Read’s daughter Celeste is heading to Grade 1.
"It's a big day," said Junio-Read.
"We're really excited for her to start learning again, for her to get into the routine, see all her friends and just really start to grow."
There are now roughly 60,000 students spread out across 118 CCSD schools.
With Calgary's population growing rapidly, so too is student enrolment.
The CCSD saw an increase of 2,154 in enrolment for the 2022-23 school compared to the prior school year, well above the district's prediction of 1,400 new students.
CCSD superintendent Bryan Szumlas says the Catholic school board is increasing its teaching staff to deal with the influx.
"Our pupil services team have worked really hard over the summer months to hire teachers," Szumlas said.
"We had to replace about 150 teachers that retired in the spring, and then, as we go forward here into the fall, we're looking at hiring approximately … just under 100 teachers as we go forward."
The increased enrolment brought the average school utilization rate up to 84.26 per cent, which is still just below the provincial benchmark of 85 per cent.
However, some CCSD schools were still at or above capacity.
"We know this year, we're not opening any new schools other than our storefront outreach, high school to help some of our most vulnerable youth," Szumlas said.
"Right now, we're going to make it work with the space that we have. Consequently, our classes may be a bit larger, but really, students don't come to us in nice little classrooms of 25."
Much like the Calgary Board of Education, the Catholic district will have to work on balancing out enrolment and increasing capacity in more popular communities.
Szumlas says some over-capacity CCSD schools are moving students to schools with lower enrolment.
"We do have some schools right now within Calgary Catholic, where we are controlling their enrolment and so they are redirected to other schools. And we especially see this in new booming communities. So when we look around the city of Calgary which is growing extensively, some of those new communities that are coming online, the Catholic students are bused to certain schools that do have room"
Tuesday also marks back-to-school for Rocky View Schools (RVS), which has recently seen some of the most significant jumps in student enrolment.
Heading into the previous school year, RVS saw its number of students jump to 27,772. That represented a 4.3 per cent jump, far exceeding the school board's prediction.
That board includes schools in Airdrie, Cochrane, Chestermere and other communities to the north, west and east of Calgary.
The latest CCSD and RVS enrolment data should be available in the coming weeks.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
NEW Is there a cost to convenience? Canada approves new cancer immunotherapy treatment
A new cancer treatment recently approved in Canada promises to cut treatment time down to just minutes, but experts have differing opinions on whether it's what's best for patients.
King Charles III returns to public duties with a trip to a cancer charity
King Charles III will return to public duties on Tuesday when he visits a cancer treatment charity, beginning his carefully managed comeback after the monarch’s own cancer diagnosis sidelined him for three months.
Canada's new dental program offering hope of free care to millions but many dentists aren't signed up
A new Canadian dental care program is offering the hope of free care to millions, but while 1.7 million people have signed up for the plan, only about 5,000 dentists have done the same.
NDP says Ottawa's new grocery task force isn't living up to government promises
The federal government says the task force it created to monitor and investigate grocery retailers' practices has not conducted any probes and doesn't have a mandate to take enforcement action.
Archeologists search for remnants of Halifax's 250-year-old wall that surrounded the city
Archeologist Jonathan Fowler is using ground-penetrating radar to search for historic evidence of the massive wall that surrounded Halifax more than 250 years ago.
Air Canada walks back new seat selection policy change after backlash
Air Canada has paused a new seat selection fee for travellers booked on the lowest fares just days after implementing it.
Province boots mayor and council in small northern Ont. town out of office
An ongoing municipal strike, court battles and revolt by half of council has prompted the province to oust the mayor and council in Black River-Matheson.
Winner of US$1.3 billion Powerball jackpot is an immigrant from Laos who has cancer
One of the winners of a historic US$1.3 billion Powerball jackpot last month is an immigrant from Laos who has had cancer for eight years and had his latest chemotherapy treatment last week.
Anne Hathaway reveals she's now five years sober
Anne Hathaway first shared she lost interest in drinking after a bad hangover in 2018. She’s now five years sober.