For many, the dreaded day has arrived.
It’s back to school for most elementary and secondary school students in the separate and public systems.
Director of Education for the separate system Bruce McPherson says there is a full day of classes today for junior and senior students.
McPherson says they go into the new school year in a healthy position with just a slight drop in enrolment to date.
He says they’re down in enrolment by 2.8% at the elementary level but there is an increase in students on the secondary level of 1.6%.
McPherson says they’ll have more definitive figures by the end of this week.
The separate school system has approximately 4,000 students in total.
On the other hand his counterpart in the public system, Mary Ann Alton says they’re looking at a four per cent decline overall.
However that prediction was made last Spring and they won’t have final figures in until the end of this week as well.
Alton does say their decline is average for public systems across the province.
The Bluewater system has approximately 18,000 students.
She says all students are back in class, except for senior students at the high schools who are not mentoring new grade nine students through their orientation.
The remainder of the high schools will hit the books tomorrow.
Both MacPherson and Alton say many of the schools have been undergoing make-overs through the summer to help make them more student-friendly and certainly “greener.”
Looking ahead, MacPherson doesn’t see any school closures in the future of his system.
Alton says they are always reviewing and will go through the process again this year as they did last year.
