Thread: Losing 9,000 students over five years, Mesa district prepare

Losing 9,000 students over five years, Mesa district prepares again to confront declining enrollment

Posted: Thursday, September 9, 2010 12:51 pm

Michelle Reese, Tribune | 2 comments

With more than 9,000 students exiting Mesa schools in the last five years, the elected governing board on Friday will once again confront the topic of declining enrollment.

Mesa Unified School District Superintendent Mike Cowan said Wednesday enrollment has gone from 74,000 to about 65,000 in the last half decade. The district is working to finalize the current enrollment numbers, but they should be available to the board during Friday's study session. Using city housing numbers, foreclosure numbers, birth rates and Census data, school leaders hope to capture not only a true picture of enrollment but specific reasons for the decline.

"I don't know that we have anything conclusive, but some of the information we're collecting indicates there was an impact on enrollment as a result of Senate Bill 1070" (the state's new illegal immigration law), Cowan said. "The other thing that has played a significant role is foreclosures and the impact of the economy on families, as in people being evicted from their homes and having to move in with relatives in other locations or move to other places." He also pointed to the general decline in Mesa's population, as shown by recent Census data.

Last spring, Gov. Jan Brewer signed SB 1070. Much of the law has been put on hold by the courts, but advocates for immigrants leaders said it spread enough fear to the community that some families packed up and moved from the state.

Declining enrollment not only means fewer staff and classrooms, but fewer dollars in the district budget. Each student brings in about $5,000 in state funding. The district has lost $85 million in the last three years, mostly from state budget cuts to education, but also from the district's enrollment decline.

The board last year voted to close Powell Junior High School and convert the campus into an education center beginning this school year. Students from two smaller campuses - East Valley Academy and McKellips Middle School - were moved to the former Powell site, making those spaces available to rent out.

The district also changed programs at Alma Elementary School, Hendrix Junior High School and Frost Elementary School to appeal to more students and parents, to perhaps grasp some of the charter school population. Ninth-graders were moved to three of the district's six comprehensive high schools, with the rest making the change next school year.

The steps were dubbed "Defining the Future," and were needed to address declining enrollment as well as financial issues, board members and school leaders said.

It's too soon to say whether or not more schools will be closed or programs changed, Cowan said, but if it is to take place, the district must adhere to the legislative-set time lines. That means hearings would start this semester and a decision must be made by early 2011.

Governing board president Dave Lane said the district and state budget scenarios are not improving, making it necessary to continue to look again at the issue.

"We're continuing to lose kids. We could be down 2,500 to 2,800 kids again this year. That's pretty worrisome," he said. "The situation with the state budget just goes from bad to worse. There's no light at the end of the tunnel there. We're anticipating that our level of funding from the state may continue to be cut. Coupled with this declining enrollment, it looks like we may have a lot more capacity than we need. So we're going to have to look at maybe ‘Defining the Future' part II," he said.

The board will be presented with up-to-date capacity and enrollment data for the elementary and junior high schools on Friday, just as it was last year. The district will also present maintenance needs at the various campuses.

Lane said he's heard a positive response from the community to the changes approved last year.

"At this point in time to me it seems like a very successful undertaking," he said. "The community has embraced the things we've done."

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Great smaller class rooms lower teacher/student ratio wish my kids had that problem

This presents a troubling problem. Funding to build schools comes from enrollment figures. If they have been including enrollment for illegals as a basis for building and funding schools then this should be upsetting more than a few people in Arizona. Another very good reason for getting the illegals out!!

Quote:
"I don't know that we have anything conclusive, but some of the information we're collecting indicates there was an impact on enrollment as a result of Senate Bill 1070" (the state's new illegal immigration law), Cowan said. "The other thing that has played a significant role is foreclosures and the impact of the economy on families, as in people being evicted from their homes and having to move in with relatives in other locations or move to other places." He also pointed to the general decline in Mesa's population, as shown by recent Census data."

Reply:

Notice that, although it was just passed, they lead with SB1070, which could only have impacted this fall's enrollment. No mention is made that the majority of bad "subprime" housing loans were made by Fannie and Freddie (both government-backed agencies) to minorities, primarily Hispanics, and that all these bad government-inspired loans led to the inevitable collapse of the "housing bubble", resulting in people who tragically had been encouraged to buy homes they could not afford "being evicted from their homes", etc.