As enrollment increases, school district feels the strain
Published Wednesday, November 12, 2008
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FAIRBANKS — The Fairbanks North Star Borough School District increased enrollment after years of decreasing numbers.
The school district recently turned in enrollment numbers to the state for funding, said Mike Fisher, chief financial officer for the school district.
This year, the district has 14,140 students, up from last year’s 14,103.
Fisher said this year’s enrollment is below projections but said that is not a bad thing.
Fisher said the enrollment number needs to be adjusted because of the new correspondence program that the district switched to this year.
Fisher said the deployment of the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Ft. Wainwright has not noticeably affected enrollment numbers.
“We haven’t seen hard impacts or an outflux,” he said.
In previous years, the school district’s enrollment losses ranged from a handful of students to 300 students, Fisher said.
The largest area of growth was North Pole.
At the beginning of the 2008-09 school year, sixth-graders from Badger Elementary School were moved to North Pole Middle School to help alleviate the problem of overcrowding.
But a class size update from October showed many North Pole elementary schools had more than the target number of students. Badger Elementary had 13 classes between kindergarten and third grade that were over target. Fisher said North Pole schools are “maxed out.”
The largest school in the district is Lathrop High School.
The school district is the third largest in the state after the Anchorage and Matanuska-Susitna Borough school districts.
Community Discussion
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We picked up 37 more students this year and the school district is feeling the STRAIN? Who is doing the whining? The school district or the press?
We got plenty of room for more students and your key term is "target number". This number is not a strain or stress number.
The article is informative but I will remember to check my "hype" meter whenever I see a Christi Hang article in the paper. Imagine if she saw some dude walking through a group of smokers in front of the Co-op downtown. The next day her headline would read "Witness reported man dying on 2 street"! ! !
I may be going overboard here. Ya think?
Ya, I think so, geeez.
I agree - 47 new students is only a fraction of a percentage point.
Hype indeed - maybe we can get all the folks feeling the strain some of those stress balls they can squeeze and feel better
WE HAVE A CRISIS ON OUR HANDS, PEOPLE!!!!
37 more students than last year?
What are y'all just standing around for? We need to build a new school before enrollment drops next year.
People, relax. Remember we have the highest drop out rate. The classrooms will be more manageable by the end of the year. ;{)
I wonder who writes the headlines, the Christi Hang article yesterday had an equally misleading headline. DNM care to respond?
Keep in mind that Christi–the reporter–does not create the headline. She writes the story and then her editor creates the headline.
Thanks for the update Christi.
Those extra kiddos mean extra bodies in classrooms that were not built to handle more than 24 kiddos.
Only 50% or so will graduate, so what's the big deal?
This explains why there are three kids instead of two on my grandson's school bus. Why don't they call it what is is, this school district has not seen growth in years and the future doesn't look any brighter. Nothing wrong with Fairbanks staying a small town.
The headline should have read Moms and Dads were busy that year to cause an increase influx in enrollment numbers....lol
The increase of 37 students is district-wide. Some schools lost students, some gained. From what the article says, it sounds like North Pole schools gained students and that is where the crunch is being felt. And it's not like the district can just shift those kids to Two Rivers or Weller or Wood River where maybe there was a decline. Even if teachers are moved to accommodate smaller populations in one school and larger populations in another, it doesn't resolve the issue of space in those over-crowded schools.
This is just the beginning of the propaganda. It is getting towards budget season.
It must be a "Maaaaaaaad House",in those schools.
Those 37 extra students were likely transferred from a private school to public school because parents (at the time school started) were force to choose between heating fuel and a good education. My kids school lost about a dozen students because of this. I wonder now that the cost of fuel has gone down, will those extra students return to private school?
Quick, we need a new bond package! We can't possibly handle an influx of 37 students!
The schools that I attended in the 70's had student to teacher ratios of 30 to 1. I managed to get through twelve years of school under those ratios and then went to college and if anyone cares to see what I came out with from that, my posts are on record, read for yourself. Unlike my son in high school here, I always had a textbook issued to me at the begining of each year for each class. I could actually take that book home and study from it. The teachers had all of the equipment necessary to instruct me in their subject. During that time we had an oil embargo, a recession, and a great deal of unrest in our country yet the schools that I went to in generally depressed areas had what they needed.
I am not quite sure if there is an ulterior motive for the story, but the headline leads me to believe that something, once again, is coming from the Borough. I guess we'll see. If they want money from me, then it better be going to the materials that instructors need to teach. Not having enough textbooks for our kids to use worries me a lot more than the need for more infrastructure to handle this overwhelming increase in kids this year.
In reading back over this post, I may be jumping the gun a bit, but once I got started my irritation spilled out. My apologies for the rant.
Maybe the influx of the 47 students is due to the massive influx of natives moving to the cities from the villages.
We better give the teachers another raise - tha will fix it.
What a bunch of snivvilin whinners
Well, Badger, Ticisuk(I think) and North Pole E(I know) fifth grade parents have a choice to send their Sixth graders to the middle school to help ease the overload. I chose to send my daughter to the middle school (last year)because thats the enviroment she will be in 7-12, thought Id give her a little head start. Although, being the chatterbox she is, she finds it difficult to make it to her classes on time. Duct tape might help..lol.
Peccavi, it is no longer a choice. You either homeschool, private school or send your 6th grader to NPM.
Speaking of North Pole Middle, they are on lock down, bomb threat.
Bomb threat at the school...same time Alaska USA got robbed....sounds fishy...
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