Dorchester Consolidated and Port Elgin Regional schools could see a student population boom next year as Anglophone East School District officials try to solve overcrowding issues in Shediac and Dieppe schools with boundary changes.
A suggested boundary change for Dorchester would see between 39 and 73 new students next fall, a significant increase for the small school, which this year had 94 students enrolled.
Port Elgin Regional School could see between 63 and 100 additional students next year, also a big increase from the school’s current enrolment of 180 students.
The new Port Elgin students would be coming from Shediac Cape school, a kindergarten to grade 12 Anglophone school on the western side of Shediac. The boundary change would mean kids living east of Grand Barachois, or even as far as Parlee Beach, would be bussed westward to Port Elgin instead of eastward to Shediac Cape.
Dorchester Consolidated would take kids in the Memramcook area up to Dover Road, who are currently being bussed to Lou MacNarin School in Dieppe.
If the boundary changes go through, those students would proceed on to Tantramar Regional High School as they graduate from Dorchester and Port Elgin.
Anglophone East Superintendent Randolph MacLEAN presented the possible changes to the District Education Council at their March meeting, along with other boundary change suggestions. He told the council that schools like Shediac Cape and Lou MacNarin have had to bring in portables and use common school spaces for classrooms.
“This is not written in stone,” said MacLEAN. “These are ideas and thoughts and wonders and possibilities that we’ve put together.”
Council member Dominic Vautour echoed the idea that the proposed boundary changes were not a done deal, but also that some sort of action was necessary. “The point of the consultations is we need to hear from the public,” said Vautour, who represents the Shediac area. “We really don’t want to do this, but we have to… Our schools are bursting at the seams.”
Maclean said that since 2018 the Anglophone East student population has grown by nearly 2500. Some but not all schools in Tantramar have seen increases, with the largest being at Marshview Middle School, which has 39 more students this year than it did in 2018. Dorchester’s student population has also grown, with 23 more students than in 2018. Port Elgin has 13 more students, and Salem and Tantramar High have nearly the same number, though populations have fluctuated from year to year.
In addition to the suggested boundary changes to redistribute students to less crowded schools like Dorchester and Port Elgin, the school district has also requested new schools in both Shediac and Dieppe. The Shediac school is approved and is expected to be built by September 2024 at the earliest.
