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| Demographer says enrollment at crossroads |
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| Wednesday, 12 December 2007 | |
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Cliff Buchan News Editor It’s being called a crossroads. And when ISD 831’s future student enrollment is the subject, it is possible the number of students attending Forest Lake Area School could go up or go down. Demographer Hazel Reinhardt delivered that message to the ISD 831 School Board on Thursday, Dec. 6. The report presented details that were not new in many respects. Enrollment has continued to tumble in the district with a number of factors responsible. Since the fall of 1998, ISD 831 enrollment has fallen by 699 students from 7731 students to 7032 students. That’s a decrease of 9 percent. The district opened this fall with total K-12 enrollment of 7032 students. The district’s enrollment was at its peak in the fall of 1996 when 7864 students were in K-12 classes. Reinhardt said the decline to a degree mirrors declines throughout the state, but added that the decline has accelerated in the past two years with a decrease of 180 students in 2005-2006 and 224 students in 2006-2007. The demographer said the number of births in the district over the period has not kept pace with the number of deaths and the district continues to see a migration in its enrollment. Based on her report, Reinhardt estimated that by the school year 2015-16, the district’s enrollment could settle in at 6549 students to 7178 students. Open enrollment, charter school attendance and home school options are all factors in the decline, the report said. Why the drop The report points clearly to migration as a factor in the enrollment decline. The study provides an estimate that some 1708 students in the fall of 2005 were attending school elsewhere. Based on the state estimating model, that number would grow to 1921 students by 2015. Regarding open enrollment, the district reported a negative 257 students in the fall of 2006. The district took in 369 students but saw 626 resident pupils leave the district to attend school in other districts. The latter total represents 7.2 percent of district school-age residents. In Minnesota, 4.2 percent of students open enroll in other districts. The Forest Lake 2006 total is an improvement, however, from the fall of 2005 when the district lost 360 more students than it took in. Also in the fall of 2006, the district saw 708 resident pupils enrolled in non-public schools. Of the total, 244 were students in home schools. The district saw 776 and 276 students, respectively in the two categories in the fall of 2005. The number of students in home schools in the fall of 2006 is an increase of 32.6 percent since the fall of 2000. In Forest Lake, 2.8 percent of the district’s school-age residents are home schooled compared to 1.9 percent in the state as a whole. Based on estimated school-age population in the fall of 2006, some 8.2 percent of all school-age district residents, or 708 students, were enrolled in non-public settings. In Minnesota, 10.6 percent were enrolled in non-public settings, the report said. Charter schools, led by the public Lakes International Language Academy Spanish Immersion School in Forest Lake, claimed 434 resident pupils in the fall of 2006. The report indicates that ISD 831 schools have lost 5 percent of the district’s school-age population to Lakes International and North Lakes Academy Charter School. In Minnesota, 2.6 percent of the school-age population is enrolled in charter schools Other factors Along with birth-death records and the 2000 federal census, the Reinhardt report also draws on housing start data to help reach its estimates. The report showed facts indicating that fewer women of childbearing years were now living in the district. Forest Lake city is also growing as a retirement center with the population over age 65 now 13.6 percent of the city’s population base. While households continue to grow, the projected gains are not producing enrollment gains. Based on 2005 estimates from city tax records and the Minnesota State Demographer, Forest Lake had just under 15,000 households. That is an increase of 16.8 percent over the 12,781 households in 2000. In 2000-2001 the district had a school-age child per household ration of 0.59. By 2005-2006 it had fallen to 0.50 like Washington County, it is likely to fall another 6 percent to 0.47 school-age child per household in 2015. The number of households in the district is expected to increase to 18,578 in 2015. Social Bookmarking ...       |
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