Student welcome centre in Moncton helps families as newcomer enrolment skyrockets
CBC
A new province or a new country means a new school system to navigate.
Yet five-year-old Jhana-Jade Campbell, who has lived in Ontario, Jamaica and now New Brunswick, isn't worried about overcrowded classrooms or making new friends.
She's focused on her love of rainbows and unicorns and when she will be allowed to take the school bus on her own.
But for her mother, lawyer Anika Spence, these things are especially nerve-racking.
Spence said her family made the move from Brampton to New Brunswick to take advantage of the affordable home prices.
"We were really looking for a bigger house with bigger yard space, and that's, like, next to impossible to find" in Ontario," she said.
"And we moved here and we love it. We have a big house and a big yard."
With the help of the centre, Spence was able to register Jhana-Jade and her 12-year-old son for school and get their bus schedule.
The second storey of the former Hillcrest School in Moncton, now called the International Welcome Centre, serves as a hub to help families figure out school and activity registrations, numeracy and literacy assessments, bus planning and newcomer services.
More than 470 students registered for school in the district in July and August, said Laura Jeffrey, the principal at the welcome centre.
Like Spence and her family, about 100 moved from other parts of Canada and the remaining 370 were international newcomers.
Both the Anglophone East School District, along with the Francophone South district, has continued to see significant enrolment growth in the Moncton area. A new school in the city's west end recently opened, and the district now has 85 portable classrooms either in place or soon to be in place.
Maricris Tamula, an intercultural support worker at the welcome centre, is responsible for helping families navigate key information such as transportation, school hours and the district website.
It's work she loves to do because she knows what it's like to be a newcomer, having come to New Brunswick herself in 2021 from the Philippines with her school-aged daughter.
