School’s out: Churchill could lose more than two dozen students

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This article was published 07/09/2017 (2952 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Churchill’s Duke of Marlborough School may have lost more than two dozen students — about 11 per cent of expected enrolment — because the rail line into the northern Manitoba town isn’t running.

So far, that figure is an estimate, as classes don’t start until this morning, Frontier School Division superintendent Reg Klassen said Wednesday afternoon.

“We expect to lose 20 to 25” from the numbers expected to be in school this week, he said. “We wouldn’t be surprised to be under 200 (students).”

School officials have been hearing all summer about families moving out of the town on the edge of Hudson Bay (some 1,600 kilometres north of Winnipeg) because jobs have been lost and the cost of living has soared, Klassen said. “We do know the cost of living in Churchill has increased; we know that takes a toll.”

The rail line was flooded out May 23. Its owner, Denver-based Omnitrax, has refused to pay the estimated repair costs of $20 million to $60 million.

All teachers have shown up for work at the nursery-to-Grade-12 school, which had 222 students in June. Klassen said there will be no reduction in teaching staff unless the enrolment numbers are much worse.

“We’re not going to yank staff out of there, unless the loss is significant,” he said. “We’re not going to make rash decisions.”

In remote communities, Frontier School Division lacks the urban option of moving a teacher a couple of kilometres away, Klassen said.

The division’s per-student funding would affect the 2018-19 school year if numbers are down, he said, but, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Four University of Manitoba education students still are slated to work at Duke of Marlborough this semester for their classroom practicum, Klassen said.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca