Larger enrollment also includes net gain of 43 through open enrollment
The Port Washington-Saukville School District has 27 more students this year than last, according to the third Friday enrollment, Director of Business Services Jim Froemming told the School Board Monday.
The district has 2,725 students this year compared to 2,698 last year, he said.
The good news, Froemming said, is that the district had a net gain of 43 students through open enrollment.
“It says a lot about the quality of education here,” he said. “We’re seeing a decrease in the number of kids leaving the district, and an increase in incoming students. That means we’re an attractive place for kids to enroll.”
This year, 108 students who live in the district are being educated elsewhere through open enrollment, compared to 120 last year, Froemming said.
But 139 students from outside the district enrolled in the Port-Saukville schools, compared to 108 last year, he said.
Forty-four of those students are enrolled at Port High, 41 at Thomas Jefferson Middle School, 26 at Dunwiddie Elementary School, 15 at Lincoln Elementary and 13 at Saukville Elementary.
The number of 4-year-old preschoolers dropped by 12 this year, Froemming said, from 166 last year to 155.
There are 194 kindergarten students, he said, close to the maximum number the district can accommodate without adding a class. Only two of these students attend half-day kindergarten.
Because of that, the district will have to take a close look at its first-grade numbers for next year — when these kindergarteners move up — decide how many students it will accept through open enrollment, Froemming said.
“The goal is to fill the seats in your classes without having to open more sections of the class,” he said.
The cost of adding sections quickly outweighs the benefit of additional state aid from these open-enrollment students, Supt. Mike Weber said.
“It takes an awful lot of open enrollment students to make up the cost of that extra teacher,” he said. “But if we have space, if we have teachers and programs to accommodate these kids, why not accept them?”
Froemming also told the board that 1,333 students attended summer school, receiving a total of 6,308,224 minutes of instruction.
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