October 1 Enrollment Report to DESE (10 minutes)

Transcript (~7 min @ 46:04)

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▶ 46:00 Speaker 6: Thank you. Okay. That's six in favor and one abstention. And that is it for finance and facilities for this evening. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Kelly. Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 46:14 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Thank you so much. Um, next on our agenda is EP and p, educational programs and personnel. Ms. Ro.

▶ 46:34 Jennifer McAndrew: Good evening everyone, and welcome to Educational Programs and Personnel. We have one item on our subcommittee agenda tonight, which is the October one enrollment report. Um, which annually the district sends to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education with our official enrollment count. This is a very important, uh, document and count that we send to DESI because it's very determinative of resources and support, like our chapter 70 state funding that we get. So, uh, superintendent, I turn over you for any comments. Sure. So, uh, there's also, for members at home, there's a, there's a chart in the packet with the enrollment numbers.

▶ 47:12 Speaker 4: So as you can see that the enrollment, uh, the total enrollment for Melrose Public Schools, which includes, uh, in this service students that we do service who come for certain services and out of district is 4,026 students. Uh, when you take the 56 and then the, uh, 62 out, you're talking at, lemme just pull it right up here. You're at a 3,900, uh, 3,680 students is K through 12, which is also important because then the preschool through 12, you add an additional, uh, 231 students that are on a pre tuition. So the numbers are very important, obviously, because that's going to help how we get funded through chapter seven. Oh. And so they didn't change as much as you saw when we last spoke at the last meeting. Um, and what I have done today, I did email you all out as of October 10th as well, and I'm going to e share with you that copy. So whenever it gets changed, you'll see it always so that you'll have that when we change those numbers. But currently that's where we are. The, um, you will see that the Melrose High School, what's interesting is the Melrose Veterans Memorial, just to remind everybody we are, we have 912 students over three grades. And then when you go to Melrose High School, we have 963 students over four grades. So that is, uh, building as we move forward. And if you take a look at, uh, the grades itself, take a look at fifth grade, we're at 300 students and all of the grades second through fifth grade are within either over 300 mm-hmm. Or right there at 300. So the numbers are increasing as we move along.

▶ 49:19 Jennifer McAndrew: Thank you. Any questions or comments about the enrollment report from the superintendent?

▶ 49:26 Speaker 9: Ms. Razzie Thomas?

▶ 49:27 Speaker 6: I just have one question. I'm, I'm just so curious about, you know, how many students were losing a private school when they go from eighth grade to ninth grade? And, um, because that's like an X factor in terms of the numbers that we wind up having at the high school versus the middle school. Um, and I know how do, how do we track that? I mean, we can just count how many we had in eighth grade versus how many we have in ninth grade, but you have movements, you know, move outs, all that stuff.

▶ 49:56 Speaker 4: So that's probably what I would look at right now for past history of taking a look at what would, what was our numbers for last year when, when they left eighth grade versus where we're at as we start, um, ninth grade. So as you take a look right now, you have 297 eighth graders. Mm-hmm. So I'm curious to see what that number looks like next year. And you start to see the pattern. Normally there's probably about 25 to 30 students that venture off into, whether it's the vocational school or private schools. So, and that's probably, in this particular case, I don't know what last year's numbers were. I, I'll take a look at that for the future so that we can kind of maybe take a look over the last three or four years and get that comparison of what those numbers look like. But if I was, it's interesting 'cause we did talk about that today at the p t o. As you look at the eighth grade with 2 97, I'm anticipating you're probably going to prob, you know, 270, we'll go to the high school out of that 297 that are in the eighth grade. So at some point you are going to, if you look at, if you take 30 students away from grades five through eight, at some point that high school, you're looking at, you know, maybe close to 1200 students or 1100 students. So you, you're gonna grow at the high school as opposed to the 912 that you have, 963 that you currently have.

▶ 51:38 Speaker 4: Personally, I'd like 'em all to stay here at the high school.

▶ 51:42 Speaker 9: Thank You. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? No, seeing none,

▶ 51:47 Jennifer McAndrew: I'll just add that, um, in addition to everything that superintendent mentioned on this chart is, um, just clear that we have very healthy kindergarten enrollment. Yes. Thank you for adding That. Um, at three 18. Um, so we're back over 300 there. Um, I think, um, in his beginning of the year message, principal Merrill at the high school mentioned this is the biggest, the high school has been in several years. Um, and so I think your point is a really good one for us to keep in mind as we look at such big middle school enrollment. We also know, I think that if, when you look back at the data, you'll see historically the current 12th graders, um, and the class that just left the high school were among the smallest cohorts moving through all from when they entered, just for whatever reason. Hmm. So we're definitely the, the smaller high school classes, um, are sort of at the top of the grades and potentially, as you point out, being replaced by bigger ninth grades every year. So,

▶ 52:48 Speaker 4: Can I add one thing too is that I'll be very curious to see next year how the kindergarten numbers start to continue to grow. Because 2025 is covid year. You know, that the, where they mm-hmm. Had the baby boom, uh, five years ago. So that's gonna see where our numbers start to even more increase. So,

▶ 53:11 Jennifer McAndrew: Excellent. Thank you. Any final comments or questions? Seeing none. That concludes E P M P tonight. Thanks everybody. Thanks Ms. McAndrew.