District 196 Enrollment Expected to Decrease Over Next Five Years

The is expecting a slight increase in enrollment for the 2012-13 school year, but then a bit of a decline for the next five years after that.

Kim Reis, student information supervisor for District 196, explained the enrollment projections to the school board Monday night.

"The projected enrollment for the 2012-13 school year is 27,420 students. This is an increase of 16 students, or 0.06 percent, from the actual Oct. 3, 2011 enrollment of 27,404. The actual Oct.1, 2010 enrollment was 27,454," Reis said. "This is our best projection for next year."

However, for the 2013-14 school year, the district is expecting about 27,412 students and in the fifth year (2015-16 school year) the district expects a decrease to 27,337 students.

"Our highest enrollment was in the 2003-04 school year, and we have been declining slowly ever since," Reis said.

that enrollment declining isn't necessarily a bad thing for the district. It won't receive any extra funding for additional students, however, it won't face rapid growth either, which means dealing with facility issues.

"We had the facility issues when the district was growing in the late 70s, 80s and 90s," Taschner said.

However, the district does expect things to pick up eventually.

Most the new growth is on the east side and south side of the district. There are lots of things out there to make the district grow, but we just dont know when that’s going to take place, Reis said.

District 196 school board president Jackie Magnuson said she enjoyed getting the updates on enrollment projections because "we aren’t surprised by less students in classrooms."

How the district determines its projections

There are two methods that Reis and her department do to determine enrollment projections. First, there is the census method, where Reis looks at the amount of children who currently live in the district and the new developments that are being built. The district is split into 130 census areas and each one is assigned to an elementary, middle and high school. 

"There is a standard loss we expect each year from people moving in and people moving out [of the district]," Reis said.

The next method Reis looks into is the Cohort Survival Method, which peers into the past enrollment and tracks the students as they move from one grade to the next. This method looks to see how many students remain from year to year and it projects that forward.

We like using both methods because it gives us the opportunity to cross-check one method against the other, Reis said.

"They're so different in their philosophy and how they look at enrollment, and it's always reassuring when they come out similar," Reis had said last year.

According to Reis, the census method tends to come out more conservative, and her department takes that into consideration when moving forward with the enrollment projections.

The Enrollment Projections Committee is also involved. The committee was founded in 2005 and consists of four principals (two from elementary schools and one from a middle and high school). The committee reviews the assumptions and results in each of the models, as well as make recommendations to the cabinet and school board.