Where Have All the Children Gone?
VANCOUVER - Research reveals that since 2004, enrollment in public elementary schools in the City of Vancouver has declined by more than 13 percent (over 2,600 students) — a continuation of a steady enrollment decline since 2000.
“While our overall City population has grown, it is surprising to discover that public elementary school enrollment has actually been on the decline by so much and for such a long time”, observed Andrew Yan, a BTAworks researcher and Urban Planner who wrote the brief. “Almost 20 percent of all Vancouver public elementary schools lost more than 20 percent of their students over the last 5 school years”.
BTAworks, the research and development division of Bing Thom Architects examined enrollment data from the Ministry of Education as part of their ongoing series focused on the health and sustainability of Vancouver neighborhoods and the overall city.
Yan notes that enrollment decline was very geographically uneven, with schools in the Northeast section of the City facing the largest losses while school enrollment on the City’s west side remained largely stable and, in certain cases, increased.
Elementary schools in the Northeast of the city, such as Lord Nelson, Walter Moberly, and Queen Alexandra lost about 25 percent of their enrollment, with William McDonald losing 50 percent of its student enrollment over the 5 most recent school years while Kerrisdale and Lord Tennyson saw 20 percent increases over the same period.
While some have suggested that an exodus of students to the independent school system accounts for this loss of students, Yan notes that growth in the private system in the same time frame only accounts for a partial number of missing elementary students.
“There is no single reason behind this decline in public elementary school enrollment, but the perfect storm created by factors such as an aging city and shrinking family sizes, combined with an open boundaries policy for all City of Vancouver schools and an outflow of independent schools who all have a role. This is compounded by a lack of affordable housing that is suitable for young families with children”, Yan suggests.
“If we cannot create a city where families want to send their children to the school down the block, what chances do we have of creating the greenest city in the world?”, said Michael Heeney, a principal at Bing Thom Architects, “This brief highlights one of the most basic sustainability challenges we have in the City of Vancouver.”
Heeney concludes, “Schools are only one example of millions of dollars of existing child supportive infrastructure in this city that runs the risk of being wasted. Like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, the decline in elementary school enrollment may also mean that families will start to disappear from Vancouver as well.”
The full data brief is available at www.btaworks.com.
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BTAworks Elementary School Enrollment Media Release (PDF)
BTAworks Elementary School Enrollment Data Brief (PDF)
BTAworks Elementary School Enrollment Map (PDF)
Media Contact
Andrew Yan
Researcher/Urban Planner
(604) 682-1881
try lobbying the government to stop creating housing bubbles with easy credit! it’s stealing from future generations
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This should not be a surprise to any education planner or infrastructure planner unless they’ve been living in a bubble for the last 15 years. How many friends or kids of parents do you know in their 30’s who either don’t have any kids, waiting to have kids into their late 30’s or early 40’s, or are only having 1 kid.
The behaviour of this age group has been a product of double income families, longer working hours, etc, etc.
What is really troubling is that these planners don’t get it. We don’t need more schools, and unless we can find more short term uses for schools with little enrollment I can understand why school districts will shut down more schools.
Teachers and employees won’t like this, but if we’re not creating more children then its hard to argue to keep schools open.
Schools are only as good as parents’ commitment to making them good. Shipping your child to a school outside your cachement is every parents right, with the side effect of weakening the public school system further.