From today’s follow up story about Duluth’s Red Plan school enrollment.
I haven’t read the story yet but I found this graphic interesting. If my hasty math is correct it shows that the average number of elementary students in each grade level for K-5 has decreased from 650 per grade last year to 639 this year. Its only an average but the logical question to ask is does this show that Duluth’s elementary population is declining in tandem with the enrollment figures?
I don’t know but I suspect this shows that more parents of Duluth’s elementary are finding alternative schools to educate their children.
For the middle schools which include grades 6, 7 and 8 there has been a countervailing increase from 548 students per grade last year to 566 students this year. This does not surprise me. Duluth has finally opened the two middle schools it has been building towards for six years. It signals an end to a very chaotic period where students were shuffled from school to school and an enrollment increase should be expected.
The news is not as rosy in the high schools where classrooms are reportedly bloated. The four high school grades averaged 720 students last year. This year they only average 712. If the District fails to lower class sizes significantly the pressure will continue to find alternative avenues to educate high school students or see them drop out.
The District and School Board have decided not to offer a referendum to ask for additional property tax levies this year. To shore up its classroom spending it is dipping into the last of its reserves to the tune of a couple million a year. When those reserves finally disappear there will be a further increase in class sizes across the board.
The District is still hemorrhaging students. The hemorrhaging has evidently slowed but it has not stopped and news of further crowding will only re-accelerate the process.
If the School Board is looking for good news this isn’t it. Neither is the hectoring by the Duluth News Tribune of one of its few popular members, Tom Kasper, as it seeks an explanation for Tom’s unexpected and suspicious resignation from his City Job.
