Schools

District 68 School Board Discusses High, Low Enrollment in Schools

William F. Murphy Elementary School is at its lowest enrollment ever, according to District 68 officials.

There won’t be any changes to school boundaries made soon, but the District 68 school board is watching a disparity of student enrollment in its elementary schools.

Cathy Skinner, assistant superintendent for personnel in the district, went over the six-day enrollment numbers for the elementary schools and Jefferson Jr. High at Monday night’s school board meeting.

School board members voiced concerns over the low numbers Skinner reported at and higher numbers reported at .

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Skinner reported that there are 411 students at Meadowview, 387 students at , 375 students at , 372 students at , 353 students at , 284 at Murphyand 604 at  

Murphy’s enrollment is the lowest the school has ever seen, Skinner said at the meeting.

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Murphy has smaller fifth or sixth grade classes compared with other elementary schools in the district. Murphy also has the smallest kindergarten class in the district. Even with the smaller numbers, Murphy is using its classroom space, Skinner said. 

“We will watch this closely,” Skinner said during the meeting. She said the principal of Goodrich Elementary School is also concerned because the school does not have a lot of empty classrooms. 

The district will also watch the rising number of students at Meadowview. The school has seen an increase in its kindergarten class. According to enrollment projections from the district, the school had about 50 students in its 2009-2010 kindergarten class and more than 60 in 2010-2011.

Based on that change, the school is projected to have a kindergarten class of 78 for the 2012-2013 school year, 90 in 2013-2014 and a whopping 101 in 2014-2015. 

Wegner said the district should not expect such a drastic influx of students at Meadowview; the increase for one year throws off the math for every future year when determining projections.

“In the projections we see a large increase in the size of Meadowview and also at Sipley,” he said during Monday’s board meeting. “I don’t know if those anomalies will play out or not.”

Board members and administration repeated they would watch the situation closely. 

“At some point, we’re going to need to address this issue,” said School Board Member Jeff Cortez.


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