‘Bursting at the seams’: Just how crowded are some schools in Saskatchewan?

When Sylvia Fedoruk School opened in 2017, the Saskatoon elementary school was designed to have breakout areas and spaces that could function as art rooms. 

But with a student population of more than 1,000 children for the last two school years, those areas are not being used as originally planned. 

“We put up false walls in every single one of those spaces and they're all used as a classroom right now,” said Sheldon Alderton, whose daughter is a Grade 7 student at the school.   

Alderton, who sits on the elementary school’s community and parent councils, said that at one point, the staff room had to be converted into a classroom. That forced teachers to use other community areas of the school, which shares a building with another school in the Catholic school division. 

“We did not have enough space, before a portable arrived, to put students somewhere,” he said.  

“Between classes, it's absolute chaos in the hallways.”

Alderton is concerned the crowding is affecting his daughter’s education and he’s far from alone. Several schools in Saskatchewan’s two biggest cities are operating above their design capacity. This is Saskatchewan spoke to parents at some of those schools, whose concerns include student-teacher ratios and hallways being so crowded that it's difficult for their child to physically reach a washroom during breaks. 

It’s leading some to ask, "When should a new school be built?" 

According to data from the Ministry of Education, combined enrolment at schools in Regina and Saskatoon’s public and Catholic divisions has grown by more than 10,000 students in the last five school years.   

But that growth is not spread evenly, as certain neighbourhoods grow faster than others. 

At Saskatoon’s public school division, director of education Shane Skjerven said the "vast majority” of schools have a significant amount of enrolment space.  

But there are several schools, particularly in the northeast part of the city, including Sylvia Fedoruk School, which are “well over capacity” and are using portables to accommodate student growth, he said.

There are only so many portables — or relocatable classrooms as they are officially called by the province — that can be added to a building for meet fire codes and allow bathroom access, Skjerven said. 

As the division has added more portables to schools, washrooms have had to be added as well, such as at Chief Whitecap School, he said.