No Surprises In School Enrollment Figures

By Tanjua Damon

Newtown student enrollment is pretty close to what the district estimated for the 2000-2001 school year that kicked off August 30, and schools began totaling their tentative enrollment totals.

Superintendent John R. Reed reported to the school board Tuesday night at their workshop meeting that there are currently 4,939 students in the district, but an official total will not be given until October 1 since that is what the state requires.

“It’s pretty much what we had expected,” Dr Reed said. “One place we were off was our kindergarten enrollment.”

There are more than 2,300 elementary school students at the four elementary schools so far this year. Kindergartners make up almost 400 students of that count.

”Kindergarten is the one that impacts us the most,” Dr Reed said. “It is encouraging to see that kindergarten is actually down from what we thought it would be.”

The district is showing 1,200 students at the middle school and 1,348 at the high school right now. Dr Reed was not surprised or worried about these figures.

“We knew we were going to grow at the high school and middle school so I’m not too worried about that,” he said. “There’s nothing in the middle school that surprises us. It’s what we projected.”

There are 560 students at Head O’ Meadow School. That is 10 students over what the district had expected for this year, according to Dr Reed.

School Board Chairman Elaine McClure said the current numbers now show that the need for the 5/6 school is there. The new school would help to alleviate the overcrowding that some of the elementary schools are dealing with.

“I think what we’re looking at is evidence that we need that 5/6 school,” she said. “It’s not that we didn’t have the money for a teacher, but we didn’t have a room to put that teacher in. Hopefully the 5/6 school will come sooner than later to help alleviate overcrowding.”

The school board also was advised of minor changes in the configuration of the 5/6 school that is currently in the design stage.

According to Dr Reed, the media center had to be resized, which required the moving of four classrooms that were planed for the lower floor and now have been moved to the upper floor. There will be 24 classrooms located on the upper floor and 20 on the lower floor.

The media center had to be redone because there needed to be more space between the two exits, Dr Reed said. It will now be square instead of rectangular.

“It changed from north and south to east and west,” he said. “It had an effect on four classrooms on the lower level. They had to be moved to the top floor.”

The elevator has also been moved to the center of the academic corridors and is closer to the buses, he said.