Public school enrollment projected to drop

Date: 2/14/2011

Feb. 14, 2011

By Chris Maza

Reminder Assistant Editor

LONGMEADOW — The town's public schools are projected to continue to see a decrease in enrollment over the next 10 school years, according to a study done by the New England School Development Council (NESDC).

The projections suggest that enrollment will drop from its current 2010-11 school year level of 2,858 students enrolled in kindergarten through grade 12 to 2,346 by the 2020-21 school year.

High school graduating classes are expected to shrink from the current number of students — 229 — to 174 students by 2020-2021. The 10th grade looks to take the biggest hit, dropping from 247 students to 162.

"K to 12 enrollments are forecast to shrink by an average of 51 students per year for the next decade ... as smaller kindergarten classes replace the larger graduating class," the study reads.

The study takes into account births in the town, the level of migration in and out of the district, real estate sales and construction and the number of children held back, in its calculations.

According to the report, the two biggest factors in the projected decrease are fewer births in Longmeadow and changes in the number of families moving into the school district.

Longmeadow averaged 145 births per year from 1995-2004, but since then, that rate has dropped to somewhere between 118 and 130 births per year.

The study also blames the economic downturn for the lack of new blood coming in to the town.

Decreased enrollment is a continuing trend for the school district, which posted a 10.7 percent decrease over the past decade, from the 2000-01 school year to the current year, according to the NESDC's report.

Although the town showed increased enrollment from 2000-01 through 2003-04, Longmeadow has seen a decrease in district-wide enrollment every year since.

The complete study can be found on the Longmeadow public schools' Web site at http://sites.longmeadow.k12.ma.us/www.