While the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board is predicting a slight decrease in enrolment for next year - which could affect funding - the chair of the board of trustees says she's not concerned.
The board met Tuesday evening, with one report outlining preliminary pressures and challenges for the 2025-26 budget, however, Lisa Soulliere says it's still very early.
The report touched on a number of topics, such as the provincial outlook, core education funding, and enrolment.
The report showed that projected full-time enrolment for 2025-26 saw a 270 student decrease compared to the 2024-25 school year. Due to the lower projected enrolment number, there is a forecasted grant reduction from the provincial government of $2.5-million.
The business department at the WECDSB has already started to review and develop a budget outlook for next year to ensure the board is not affected financially if these enrolment numbers remain the same.
Soulliere says they're not worried as these projections are very early.
"Our JK/SK registration numbers right now are actually quite good, a little bit higher than what they were last year at this time. So, we're very positive about our enrolment numbers. This time of year we're trying to be conservative, we would like to try and do our budgeting with the conservative number for new students in the fall."
She says this allows the board to prepare early in the instance that the enrolment projections are correct.
"Really it's just that at this point in the budgeting process, we don't know exactly what our September enrolment's will be, so we're being conservative in the numbers that we're using at this point to budget for. I expect that by September we're going to see that number go up some more."
She adds that if the projections remain the same, there would be a decrease in funding.
"We're definitely aware of the fact that we might have a slight decrease, and of course funding is driven by enrolment numbers, so that would impact. But at the same time, it would decrease expenses as well. So, some of those numbers would decrease on their own with a small compliment of students."
Soulliere says due to the number of investments locally that they're expecting more families to come to the region in the summer and fall.
The board is estimating a total of 22,480 students for the 2025-26 school year.
The report was received as information only.