Local

schools

anticipate

declining

enrollments

210 seniors, 138 kindergartners

in District 88 now

By ERIC SERRANO

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM - If all of District 88's 1999-2000 kindergartners pass through the public school system and graduate in 2012, 22 percent fewer diplomas will be passed out than are expected to awarded next spring.

This year's New Ulm High School graduating class had 210 seniors enrolled at the end of September -- 26 students less than the previous year by district accounting. And while succeeding classes boast higher numbers of students up to the class of 2006, class sizes are expected to drop off consistently by the time the 138 current public school kindergartners in District 88 don caps and gowns.

That's going to have some significant impact on how the district does business, Superintendent Harold Remme feels.

"The trend of declining enrollments has serious implications on our financial status, our curriculum, staffing, and space needs," he said.

District 88 had 2,855 students in grades K- 12 enrolled at the end of the school year in May; only 2,706 students were in seats when the first bells rang in September.

"Some students (56) were lost to the two charter schools in Hanska and Lafayette. Another 98 students were lost to the simple difference in class sizes between last year's seniors and this year's incoming kindergartners. That only leaves 12 students not accounted for -- that perhaps moved out of the district or whatever," Remme said.

Expected dips in enrollment aren't something unique to the local public school system either.

In the New Ulm Area Catholic School (NUACS) system, Superintendent David Schieffert said numbers have been falling off in the past five years.

In 1994-1995 NUACS has 720 students enrolled, the figure dropped to 670 this fall.

Enrollment projections are still being compiled as part of the five-year operational plan that NUACS is currently conducting as part of its accreditation self-study. Schieffert isn't expecting any major changes in enrollment patterns.

"There may be some potential population shifts, but that's the same thing other schools will have to deal with," he said.

Minnesota Valley Lutheran High School's nearly decade-long history of enrollment increases of roughly 10 students per year is expected to level off in the early years of the new millennium before dropping off slightly, according to MVL Principal John Schultz.

"The (marked drop-off in enrollments) isn't a surprise," said Remme. "We planned for (lower numbers) this year. We did some planning ahead when we had an idea that this (enrollment decline) would be coming. This year we reduced staff by 8.5 full-time equivalents. We can probably expect more reductions in staff over the next five years alone just based on need."

But, fewer students will mean more for the district that just fewer teachers, Remme points out.

The ramifications of fewer students will be an integral part of the work of the newly-created Long-range Planning Task Force, a collection of nearly 30 district administrators, school board members, staff, and district residents created to examine programming and facility issues into the first decade of the next century.

"It will be a major part of the what the Task Force does this year," Remme said. "We (also) use these projections to determine facility needs, how to best utilize the spaces we have available.

"Reductions in the numbers of students doesn't always equate to reduced space needs," he said. "The nature of the services we provide are ever-changing. Some of the techniques for delivery of those services require more space as well."

Remme pointed to a plan to eventually move the district's Early Childhood and Family Education program from an off-site facility to one of the district's four campuses.

The district also conducts its auto-technical program in a rented facility away from the high school's main campus.

"Anything not in one of our own buildings has a cost," he said.

Fewer students also have programming implications, District 88 Curriculum Director Bill Sprung said.

"It has a direct impact on our staffing. How do we retain high quality staff and still provide the same level of programs? It could mean that as staff retire, we would be less likely to replace them," he said.

The issue has greater impact at the high school, where a good part of the curriculum is elective-based.

"It will force us to look at things like a policy governing the number of students we have signed up for a class before we can offer it. An elective-based curriculum is geared to offer students a wide variety (of choices). With less kids we may have to offer less of a variety," Sprung said.

With increased competition from charter schools and the region's non-public offerings, fewer students add that much more of a challenge to district administrators, Sprung feels.

"In the end it comes down to parent choice," he said. "We need to demonstrate that we can offer high quality programming, show that kids achieve here at a high level."

The declining enrollment phenomenon isn't confined to the local area, according to statistics compiled by state demographers and officials at the Department of Children, Families, and Learning.

"Basically, enrollments overall have been up most of the decade across the state," said Tim Gillespy of the Department of Minnesota Planning. "But, what we've seen is that there was a little boomlet in the 1980s where boomers had some babies, and their youngest are approaching secondary school age. But, those in the 22-23 year-old range didn't replace themselves and that's a large part of the reason for the decline in primary school age numbers."

By Gillespy's figures, K-6 enrollment is projected to fall by as much as 9.3 percent between 1999-2000 and 2008-2009. By contrast 7-12 enrollment will continue to rise by almost the same amount, 9.7 percent between now and 2003, before it begins to show a drop.

Private and non-public schools should expect to see similar, proportional enrollment dips, Gillespy said.

Outstate Minnesota will see greater drops in the numbers of school-age children because "the populations tend to be older and therefore don't have as many kids in school."

Carol Hokenson, a statistician at CFL, agrees with Gillespy's assessment of state enrollment trends. By her estimations, K-6 enrollment figures began to decline in 1995-1996 and are expected to drop by an average of 2,000 students a year over the next six to eight years. Enrollments in grades 7-12, on the other hand, have been rising by as much as 13,000 and as little as 6,000 a year since 1996, according to CFL data.

As the next century begins, Hokenson estimates, that rate of increase will trickle to roughly 1,500 per year until 2005. By the time this year's fifth-graders graduate in 2006, 7-12 enrollments statewide will begin a steady 2,000-5,000 students per year decline before leveling off in 2012.