Nazareth School Enrollment Report - Charter Students Save Money? Enrollment Declining?

There is an interesting attachment/addendum to the latest School Board Meeting Minutes relating to student enrollment in the district.

Charter Schools Save Money: Roughly $217,420 in 2005-2006 school year.

• First, there is a note indicating that 70 students attend charter or cyber-charter schools at a cost to the district of nearly $ 507,000, or $7,243 per student.
• The 2005-2006 School District Budget/Spending was roughly $48.5 million (quick math noting new budget as reported in the Morning Call on 4/12 was 53.8, which was 4.3 higher than 2005-06 and there was a bit more than 1 left over in fund balance or 53.8-5.3).
• The enrollment figures tell us there are 4638 students, which equates to $10,349 per student (48.5 less .5 for charter kids - 48/4638).

Another interesting aspect of this chart is the distribution of students per grade: the earliest grades have 25% fewer students than the highest grades.

Taken in groups of three grades the distribution looks like this:

• 1200 total 10th-12th
• 1183 total 7th - 9th
• 1055 total 4th - 6th
• 922 total 1st - 3rd

As can be seen, the number of students in the youngest grades is one fourth of the highest ones. A significant decrease that ought to be taken into consideration as the district continues with its plans to add on to existing buildings and to build entirely new ones.