With a unexpected boost at the kindergarten level, School District 55 enrollment is up by 42 this year to 2,404 from 2,362 last year.
Pleasant Valley Kindergarten had 27 more students this year than last as of Friday, up to 150 from 123, prompting the district to add a half-time teacher and a half-time assistant.
Around the district, enrollment declines and increases were split. Sweet Home High School enrollment declined by 12 to 780 after graduating a large senior class. Sweet Home Junior High enrolled last year’s large sixth grade to increase its enrollment by 42 to 416.
Hawthorne was up by 13 students to 301. Oak Heights was down 16 to 280. Foster decreased enrollment by 19 to 295. Holley increased enrollment by 11 to 113, and Crawfordsville saw a four-student decrease to 69.
Kindergarten was extremely low last year, Supt. Bill Hampton said, while the high school graduated a large class.
“Probably, the real impact on the district is just the kindergarten numbers,” Supt. Hampton said. Elsewhere in the district, increases are related to classes moving through the system.
The last couple of years have seen a decline in enrollment, resulting in budget cuts last year and cutbacks in staffing levels during the budget session this year.
In the last five years, District 55 has had a decline of 229, roughly a school, in kindergarten through sixth grade, Supt. Hampton said. Even this year, the elementary group decreases slightly.
“The loss of enrollment has been the elementary,” Supt. Hampton said. “If you look at that, except for kindergarten, it looks like we’re in the same place.”
With the additional kindergarteners, funding for the district is “about flush,” Supt. Hampton said. The kindergarten students count for half in terms of state funding.
The cuts the district made this year, some 11.5 teaching positions, were the result of that declining elementary enrollment, Supt. Hampton said. “We had not made this cut, and we probably should have.”
Supt. Hampton thinks the numbers should hold steady through December, he said. Mid-September numbers are usually where the district enrollment settles.
Supt. Hampton is worried about what will happen next year because the district is “again showing a slight decline in the elementary years.”
The largest classroom in the district is a Foster sixth-grade class with 32 students. The other sixth-grade class has 28.
With Holley enrollment up, a fourth- and fifth-grade blend has 30 students, and a fifth- and sixth-grade blend has 29 students. A Hawthorne sixth-grade class is at 30 students. Another at the school is at 27.
The junior high also is handling large class sizes.
How schools handle those classes is decided by the principals, Supt. Hampton said. Options include adding assistant time in those larger classrooms.