Shevchenko School in Vita has seen an increase in student numbers this fall, ending a slow decline in enrollment that started about 15 years ago. Principal Peter Osadchuk says they have 20 additional students this year, bringing their total number to about 350. He adds the increase is spread out over most grades of the K-12 school.

"Mostly, right across the ages, but we did see an influx of Kindergarten students registering. It was probably the class that had the [newest] students go into it."

Osadchuk explains what has led to the influx of students.

"We've had some families move into Vita and the surrounding area and we've actually picked up some students who have come back from being homeschooled for a number of years."

Osadchuk has been at the school for a number of years and is pleased to see a turnaround in the student population.

"In my tenure here, the highest we ever were at was about 406 and that was going back, probably 15-16 years ago. And then for many, many years we always hovered around the 370 mark or so and from there, it was just a constant decline down to a low of around 320 to 324. This summer, we had a lot of new faces come in and it's been wonderful to get back up to really close to 350."

Meanwhile, Ross L. Grey School in Sprague has seen an increase of two students this year and has a student population of 151. But Krista Curry, Superintendent of the Border Land School Division, notes that the Sprague school is up 25 students over the last four years. She adds Border Land is surprised and pleased with the higher student numbers in Sprague and Vita.

"We're very pleased with our preliminary student count as of September 12 that we are up from where we predicted to be in both of those schools."

She adds they have not had to add any teachers since the new students are spread out over various grades.