Although some North Olympic Peninsula public school districts show slight increases or flat enrollment, most say that the trend is still downward and are budgeting for future losses.
Enrollment is down in the Chimacum and Port Angeles districts.
It has changed little at Quilcene, Sequim, and Cape Flattery.
Increases are reported at the Port Townsend School District and the Crescent School District in Joyce, although the superintendents give different reasons.
The Quillayute Valley School District is both up and down: up in terms of online enrollment in the statewide Insight High School, but down when counting the numbers of students at the Forks brick-and-mortar schools.
Overall, kindergarten classes are smaller than the senior graduating classes, most superintendents agree.
Declining enrollment means less state funding.
The state pays schools on an annual average of full-time equivalent enrollment, which includes kindergarten, part-time, home-school and online students.
A school receives about $4,800 per student, Sequim School District Superintendent Bill Bentley said.
A significant drop in school enrollment can mean budget cuts for the next school year.
Port Angeles
The Port Angeles School District’s enrollment is continuing a downward slide.
“We’ve been losing about 100 students a year for the last 10 years or so,” said Mark Jacobson, Port Angeles School District business director.
In the 1997-98 school year, the district’s enrollment was 4,942 full-time equivalent students. That slid to 3,930 FTE in 2007-08.
The district’s enrollment continued to erode this year.
December’s FTE enrollment, which doesn’t include the North Olympic Skills Center or Running Start enrollment, is 3,832.2, reported district spokeswoman Tina Smith-O’Hara.
The district expects to average 3,803.7 FTE for the school year, she said.
Long-term projections in Port Angeles show a continued enrollment decline, with a slight bump around 2012 and 2013.
“Looking into a crystal ball, there are so many variables,” Jacobson said.
“We’ve closed a couple of elementary schools, so they’re operating more efficiently,” Jacobson said.
Sequim School District
Nearby Sequim’s enrollment is flat.
The final numbers for November showed a head count of 2,956 students, with an FTE of 2,843.75.
That’s compared with November 2007, which had a head count of 2,937, with an FTE of 2,836.43.
“We really have a different situation than Port Angeles,” Bentley said.
With the exception of Gray Wolf Elementary, the entire Sequim School District is located on one campus, so the facilities are already being optimized, he said.
Crescent bucking trend
Bucking the trend is Crescent School District in Joyce, Superintendent Tom Anderson said.
Although the head count increased by only two students year to year — 202 in December 2007 and 204 in December 2008 — the full-time enrollment increased from 190 to 200, so the district was up by 10, Anderson said.
“If you also include our home-school program, our total enrollment is 303, whereas last year it was about 254,” he added.
Anderson attributes the bump in enrollment to the affordable area.
“People are moving into our area and continue to move in,” he said.
“They are finding affordable housing in our area, and a lot of people are hearing many good things about our school and sending their kids here.”
“There are several families who have been building homes who moved out of town, and the foreign-exchange program in the high school made a big difference,” Anderson said.
“I also know of a few families who are in town because of the [Elwha] bridge construction.”
Although he said the increase is beneficial for the district, Anderson said he isn’t sure it would be a trend.
“Every year this is an unknown for schools,” Anderson said.
“But what we are hearing from parents and from the new kids is that they really like going here, and the parents like the teachers and the small school atmosphere.
They also have appreciated the communications they get from teachers to the home.
“They like the gentle, focused education.”
Quillayute Valley
Quillayute Valley School District also showed an increase on its official enrollment numbers, but the increase was only in the online Insight School of Washington, which is under the umbrella of Quillayute Valley School District.
The district had about 1,149 students on the physical campus last year, as opposed to this year’s 1,097 students.
That number leaps up with the Insight School of Washington.
The district’s total enrollment, including the online school, was 2,071 last year and 2,697 students this year.
The head count of “brick and mortar” students, was “about 50 students shy of what we were hoping for,” Superintendent Diana Reaume said. “We were thinking we would have about 1,152 students.”
Fear created by Border Patrol roadblocks outside Forks last summer, in which illegal immigrants were detained, and a recessionary economy, which has prompted some to move in search of work, cut enrollment, Reaume believes.
Without those two factors, she said she thinks the district would have had a steady enrollment.
“We’ve had a pretty steady enrollment since about 2005,” she said.
The loss of 50 students is a hard hit, she said.
“For us, as a small district, that is a big deal,” she said. “Losing 50 students means about $250,000 for us.”
She said that, of the 50, about 20 were students who were receiving bilingual services.
“So you can tell that some of the students who have been affected by the recent Border Patrol activity as well as economic issues, it has especially affected the Forks’ Hispanic population.”
Besides losing students they have been working with for several years, the school also suffers financial blows when students in the bilingual programs leave.
“Going kid by kid, those students who qualify for additional assistance get an increased apportionment per student,” Reaume said.
“We have figured those 20 students leaving cost the district $115,000.”
Meanwhile, the district’s online enrollment keeps growing.
Last year in December, the Insight School of Washington had about 922 students.
In the spring, the school added about 500 students, and another 500 or so joined in the fall semester.
The school currently has 1,610 — exceeding the on-campus enrollment.
“We think we’ll see another 500 or so sign up in the spring,” Reaume said.
It isn’t the first time the district has seen declining enrollment woes, Reaume said.
“We had a similar thing happen to us in 2004 and 2005, but the good news, if you have any good news in this situation, is that we have been conservative and building up a reserve,” Reaume said.
“Our goal is not to use that, but we do have some flexibility to do that this year if we need to.
“But no matter what, we will be watching the numbers, especially those students in bilingual education, very carefully.”
Cape Flattery
Cape Flattery School District went from a head count of 457 students last November to 449 this November.
The FTE remained flat, with November’s FTE at 430.88 compared with last year’s at the same time: 429.62.
“It is about what we were expecting,” Interim Superintendent Kandy Ritter said.
“We are dealing with pretty much the same issues as everywhere else on the Peninsula — the economy, smaller class sizes and an aging population.”
Port Townsend
Port Townsend’s enrollment has increased from last year — and saw an increase from November to December –but that seems to be a blip in the downward trend, according to Superintendent Tom Opstad.
The head count for November was 1,483, with a full-time equivalent of 1,419.07, compared with a November 2007 head count of 1,467, with an FTE of 1,398.12.
December’s head count was 1,488, with an FTE of 1424.41.
But the apparent increase reflects only a large senior class, Opstad said.
“We have a large senior class that will be graduating this year,” he added.
Some students had enrolled from the Jefferson Community School.
But while the graduating class is 173 students, the kindergarten class is 93, according to Opstad’s office.
“This is something that is difficult to predict, especially at challenging economic times.
“But our goal is for our predictions to be on the conservative side and not to overextend ourselves.”
He said that Port Townsend, like other areas of the Peninsula, deals with an aging population and a suffering economy.
“The problem is that our funding is based totally on enrollment,” Opstad said.
“The financial challenges of increasing costs while we are losing revenue is very daunting in this time.”
Chimacum
Chimcum School District’s enrollment head count has dropped from about 1,164 to about 1,135 students.
The classes coming in are smaller than the ones leaving,” Superintendent Mike Blair said.
“We have been at a solid 80 students in the kindergarten classes for the last five years or so, so we think that is where it will level off.”
Quilcene
Quilcene School District Superintendent David Andersen said that although enrollment has stayed about the same from last year to this year ¬– from 258 in 2007 to 252 in 2008 — district officials expect the enrollment to continue to decline over the next several years and are making budget adjustments to fit that.
“We have a declining enrollment in our district,” Anderson said.
“We have reduced our teaching staff for this school year because of the lower enrollment.
“We have made budget-cutting measures in many areas in order to stay financially solvent.”
Staff cuts were made in anticipation of future declining enrollment and because the make up of the grades change as the elementary school classes are continually smaller than the secondary classes.
Most secondary classes may have larger class sizes than elementary level schools.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
