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Some students waited until the first day of school to enroll into their classes. Photo courtesy of S. Dommer.

Classes were filled with students while others were barely filled. Photo by Sheldon Jones.

Scarce enrollment causes some turmoil

Enrollment confusion may have cost the jobs of some teachers.

By ELIZABETH YUHAS
fhspress.com Staff
Posted September 8, 2011

Have you ever wondered why there are so many kids in your class in the beginning of the year? This is due to problems in enrollment, not necessarily schedules.

At the end of every school year, the school prepares for the next. They try to predict how many kids will be enrolled next school year. This is called "projected enrollment." To do this, the school counts the number of students currently enrolled (9th, 10th, and 11th graders) and then subtract the seniors. They then add the 8th graders from Foothill Jr. High, and also 8th graders from other schools. Projected enrollment can also include the number of people moving in and out of the neighborhood. The school can then get a number from this, kind of by playing a guessing game.

Although projected enrollment can give an estimate as to how many students the school will have, this does cause some problems. This process allows the district and school to hire or retain a certain number of teachers. It could affect the school because it could either gain or lose teachers. For example, if the actual enrollment numbers are far from the projected enrollment, there could be too many teachers and not a sufficient amount of kids. Extra teachers could get shifted around the district, to schools like Grant, Highlands, Rio Linda, or others. However, not enough teachers and too many kids can cause big classes.

This school year, we had an enrollment problem like other years. Since school started on a Thursday, many kids did not come the first week because it was only two days. The school wasn't close to the projected enrollment, and we could have lost some of our teachers. Fortunately, our enrollment numbers increased, and we didn't lose any of our staff members because students showed up for the first full week of school.

FOOTHILL HIGH SCHOOL fhspress.com SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA