Space Available in Piedmont Schools ?
For school year 2019 -20, Piedmont’s School District faces a drop in Elementary School enrollment. Middle School enrollment will also be down. (See attached chart in downloadable staff report.) The elementary students could be reassigned to equalize class sizes between the three elementary schools. Or, students living outside Piedmont may be admitted to fill the classroom spaces.
When space is available, students may be admitted, under certain conditions, from outside of the School District based on the state law called >“Open Enrollment”. Under the law, students from underachieving school districts may be allowed to transfer into higher achieving school districts based on classroom and teacher availability.
Implications of Program Capacity
“The District’s programmatic capacity as defined [in the staff report] will be utilized in making decisions about the placement of resident students who, in some cases, must be redirected to sites that are outside of their neighborhood school zone when capacity will be exceeded. In addition, programmatic capacity will guide the District’s ability to accept or deny and place inter-district transfer requests [students from outside of the Piedmont Unified School District].”
School District Staff Report
The School Board will consider the enrollment and capacity issue on Wednesday, February 13, 2019 at 8:45 p.m. in Piedmont City Hall Council Chambers, 120 Vista Avenue. READ the Agenda below for timing: >https://agendaonline.net/public/Meeting.aspx?AgencyID=1241&MeetingID=70531&AgencyTypeID=1&IsArchived=False . The meeting will be broadcast live on Cable Channel 27 and from the City website under videos of the School Board meeting of February 13, 2019.
| VIII. INFORMATION/DISCUSSION |
| VIII.A. Enrollment and Capacity Study Time Certain:8:45 PM Speaker:Randall Booker, Superintendent READ Downloadable Staff Report: >Background – Enrollment |
The drop is a bit surprising to me. Was it to the PUSD? Where are these children now going to school, including those in the senior year? Is this attributable to an unanticipated drop in demographics? I read the background report which properly examines alternatives, but have heard very little about the causes of the decline.
I agree with Aaron – the decline is pretty remarkable but no discussion/conjecture of causes in the staff report.
FYI, the table for elementary enrollment.
Elementary Enrollment Trends
Year Beach Havens WW Total
2011-12 323 496 310 1129
2012-13 362 505 293 1160
2013-14 364 517 317 1198
2014-15 362 533 298 1193
2015-16 335 497 311 1143
2016-17 313 493 302 1108
2017-18 298 476 302 1076
2018-19 277 439 296 1012
2019-20* 974
2020-21* 959
* Projected