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Enrollment in Kindergarten to Grade 12 schools in Vancouver has been sliding for a decade.

School year 2017-2018 is expected to be no different.

According to a staff report in the agenda Wednesday (May 31) of the school board, student registration for academic year 2017-2018 starting in September is projected to decline by 250 compared to the current level.

The drop is forecast to continue in 2018-2019, with 450 less students compared to the previous school year.

“Beyond 2018-19 enrolment is expected to decline incrementally and then stabilize beginning in 2020, based on current projections for the population of school-aged children living in Vancouver,” acting school district associate superintendent Rob Schindel wrote in the report.

According to Schindel, fewer kids are entering schools.

“For several years, the district has been experiencing a decline in overall Kindergarten to grade 12 enrolment as larger cohorts of grade 12 students, in the range of 4400 to 4700 students, have been graduating to be replaced by significantly smaller Kindergarten cohorts, in the range of 3400 to 3700 students,” Schindel noted.

The school board’s Long Range Facilities Plan approved on May 24, 2016 stated that one key factor impacting enrollment is the “changing demographic composition” in Vancouver.

“Vancouver’s population, like the rest of the province, is aging,” the planning document explained. “When the ‘baby-boomers’ were in their school age years, VBE [Vancouver Board of Education] increased school capacity to accommodate the surge in demand. As the ‘baby-boomers’ move into their senior years, there are fewer young people with school age children to fill the existing school inventory. The modern family composition is smaller in size as there are fewer babies being born today than in the past.”

The paper pointed out that Vancouver is seeing a decreasing proportion of children aged up to 12 years old compared to its overall population.

“Although the population of Vancouver is projected to increase, the number of school-aged students is not projected to mirror this increase,” the document stated. “As of 2011, 10% of the City of Vancouver’s population was aged 12 or under. Vancouver had the lowest percentage of children aged 0-12 of any Canadian municipality with a population of more than 100,000. The percentage of children within Vancouver’s population has declined over time.”

According to the paper, enrollment in Vancouver has declined by 14.5 percent since 1997. This represents a decrease of around 7,700 students.