Parents with children attending Golden Horn Elementary School have been asked to lobby against any further cuts to funding for the school.

The student population at the rural school, located near the Carcross cutoff, has been shrinking steadily since it peaked at 300 in 1998. It sits at 144 students today.

Portables once required to handle the robust student numbers are long gone.

Now the school council is concerned any further cuts to funding levels, which follow shrinking student populations, will slash past the bone into core programming, Mount Lorne MLA Steve Cardiff explained this morning.

Cardiff, a New Democrat, has written Education Minister Patrick Rouble to seek assurances against any further cuts. The school council has also written parents asking they do the same.

As well, Rouble is being asked to realign the catchment area for Golden Horn Elementary so it would include the new Whitehorse Copper country residential subdivision.

Michele Royle, the spokeswoman for the Department of Education, confirmed this morning that most of the new 110-lot subdivision falls within the catchment area of Elijah Smith Elementary.

In his letter to the minister, Cardiff asks Rouble to at least overlap the catchment boundaries for the new subdivision, so that parents can have the option of choosing either school.

The NDP Education critic pointed out in an interview this morning the new Fox Haven subdivision being built around the Meadow Lakes Golf Course will likely provide a new stream of students for Golden Horn.

So will the proposed subdivision near the Carcross cutoff by the Carcross-Tagish First Nation, Cardiff added.

Having Whitehorse Copper available to Golden Horn, he said, would add that much more stability in future student numbers.

Liberal Education Eric Fairclough also pressed Rouble Wednesday for a commitment to adjust the catchment boundaries, suggesting it only makes sense.

While numbers at Golden Horn Elementary are shrinking, it's the opposite at Elijah Smith, which is bursting at its seams and currently sending overflow students to Takhini Elementary, he pointed out during question period yesterday.

"Will the minister commit to realigning the catchment area so that Whitehorse Copper students will attend Golden Horn Elementary School?" Fairclough asked.

In response, Rouble said: "I can let the members rest assured that I have directed the department to examine catchment areas and to work with the school councils and the school administrators, and to come up with recommendations that will address the issues that are being raised and work in the best interests of all our schools."

Rouble, on the other hand, flatly dismissed the suggestion from Fairclough that his department is looking at cutting the number of teachers in the territory.

"With regard to the teacher cuts, Mr. Speaker, we are hearing something else, and the minister ought to be listening more closely to the people out there who are involved in education," Flairclough insisted.

Enrolment numbers at Elijah Smith are at a record high 311 this year. They declined steadily from the previous high of 302 in 1997 to the most recent low of 211 in 2001, but have been on the rise since as area housing increases.

Overall, the territory's student population peaked back in 1998 at 6,086 students. Today it's at 5,003, according to numbers from the department.