'The growth is a challenge': West Shore schools struggle with rapid enrolment growth

The Sooke School District released its enrolment numbers on Tuesday, showing its pace of growth hasn’t slowed down, adding 680 new students this year.

The Sooke School District released its enrolment numbers on Tuesday, showing its pace of growth hasn’t slowed down, adding 680 new students this year.

“The growth is a challenge for us to manage on an ongoing basis,” said Sooke School District superintendent Scott Stinson.

In order to accommodate all that growth, the district has repurposed music rooms and breakout spaces into classrooms. It says there is no more space to convert.

Portables have been brought in all over the district and, in the some cases, students who can’t get into their catchment schools are attending different schools far away from their neighbourhoods.

As a stopgap measure, the province did announce last week that some relief is on its way.

Both Ruth King Elementary School and David Cameron Elementary School will see a 190-seat expansion.

“That will take a lot of pressure off of us in the short term but we still need to make sure we are building new schools to accommodate this growth that we’re going to see in the next many years in this school district,” said Stinson.