While the Chinook School Division did add one more Hutterian school to its name this year, the total enrollment among the colony schools in the division continues to shrink.

According to the annual Hutterian Status Report presented to the school board on Monday afternoon since Chinook was amalgamated 11 years ago, they have experienced a drop in enrollment of 166 Hutterian students over that time.

Mark Benesh, a Superintendent of Schools for the Chinook School Division, said the declining enrollment is a little concerning.

"It's no different then any student we lose in the public schools is a loss of funding," he explained. "It just makes some staffing implications, so as we drop in certain levels we go from two teachers to one teacher that changes the dynamic a little bit... When we get to zero or a low number of students we obviously don't get funding for those buildings."

Currently there are six schools with less than 10 students enrolled which has an impact on the funding but not so much on the learning side.

"The learning circumstances are still pretty effective," Benesh noted. "We have some really good math and literacy success in the schools. It's a difficult teaching circumstance the more kids there are."

During the past four years, the decline has continued with a loss of 59 students, but the school board says some early projections for upcoming years show a slight decline but not nearly as bad.

"If you know the Hutterian cycle of the schools in the colony's that's just what happens," Benesh said. "I remember a school being at 4 students back in the 90s, while they were at 40 students 20 years later. So it depends on the circumstance, so each one just in their cycle of having kids which families are getting married. It just changes over time. We're just hopeful this won't continue, and it will remain a little more constant."

This year the Chinook School Division has 493 Hutterian students registered spread across 32 schools.