Putnam County Schools enrollment has dropped by three percent for the second consecutive year, bringing the total student population to 11,153.
Enrollment Supervisor Chris Pierce said the current figures represent a decrease of 353 students compared to the same period last year. Pierce said the district has historically seen enrollment totals grow slowly through the fall months before peaking in December.
“What stings with that a little more is this has been back-to-back years of about a 2.5 percent, 3 percent decrease,” Pierce said. “The enrollment in K-4 was a little surprising. That has been the one that has held the most, been the most stable through the years. But we are compared to last year down by 146 kids.”
Pierce said the district is currently down approximately 1,000 students compared to projections from a previous GIS study.
“We have been and continue to monitor building capacities and student-teacher ratios for compliance,” Pierce said. “And like we’ve stated before, right now we’re in a good place with that. They are fairly evenly distributed across all elementary schools and as of now, all grade bands in the schools are within student-teacher ratio mandates.”
Pierce said middle school enrollment decreased by 54 students while high school enrollment dropped by 135 students.
Superintendent Corby King said the district is moving forward with a partnership with ThoughtExchange to investigate why families are opting for homeschooling or private schools. The administrator said the technology team is currently developing a survey and questionnaire to be distributed to families.
“We’ve been able to maintain the students once they enrolled with us, they have stayed,” King said. “And so seeing a decrease in the kindergarten to first grade and the same thing happened a little bit first grade to second grade, we only lost 17 students, but still we we lost some students. That’s just a little bit different, so we want to find out from families, you know, what’s happened, what’s the change, what prompted that move?”
King said the district typically sees some families withdraw during the third-grade year due to the state’s third-grade retention law, though many return for fourth grade. King said only eight students were lost in that specific grade band this year, which could be attributed to families moving out of the district.
“It’s not surprising when we lose some third grade students,” King said. “We know we have families withdraw the third grade year, come back fourth grade over the third grade retention law. That’s been a trend for us, but this year we didn’t really lose that many… eight students.”
Pierce said all elementary, middle, and high schools in the district are currently operating below 90 percent capacity. Pierce said the average student-teacher ratio in elementary schools is 18 students per classroom.
“All elementary, middle, and high schools are below 90% capacity,” Pierce said. “However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that that there’s a lot of space still. And Dr. [Jill] Ramsey can kind of attest to this. The average student-teacher ratio in the elementary schools are 18 kids right now. And that’s that’s still a a very full classroom. It’s just not at the mandate yet.”
Pierce said the district will continue to monitor enrollment numbers throughout the fall to address any potential capacity or ratio issues.
