The "3rd Friday" count report is out - the school funding formula is calculated using student populations calculated from enrollment on the 3rd Friday in September and January. The 3rd Friday count is our first accurate measure of the enrollment for the year.
Total enrollment for the year is 3089, including open enrollment students, up from 3084 last year. That number includes 171 open enrollment students, 76 of whom are at the high school.
Subtracting out the OE students, we find an increase of 12 resident students at Maywood, while at the high school the freshman class was smaller than the class that graduated last year- a trend that has been going on for some time.
September 2009 enrollment:
Taylor Prairie 403
Cottage Grove 463
Maywood 237
Glacial Drumlin 719
Winnequah 245
HS 947
I'll link the full report when it is posted on our website!
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27 comments:
hmm. So overall, does this mean we went down in district residents attending? And grade cohorts have been shrinking? So what's all this fuss about these allegedly crowded schools in CG? Was it much ado nothing? I hear we are spending $6,000 to pay Patti McGinnis to "study" what it would cost to keep Monona's 7th-8th graders in Monona, essentially splitting the district along k-8? (didn't the district residents vote overwhelmingly against doing that several years ago?)
Why, after the massive shuffle of staff and students when GD opened, would we "study" another shuffle at this time? What problem, exactly, are we trying to solve? If we want to pay an outside expert to study something, isn't there other more pressing stuff to look at? Like maybe something that's actually related to education?! Wouldn't $6,000 pay for a fair amount of in-house teacher professional development for something like, say, effective methods for helping students who are struggling in math?
Peter,
Will you please give us the district enrollment by school as well as the capacity for each building?
Thank you.
Bill:
Some background on school enrollments and school capacities:
Maywood: Capacity -- 250; enrollment -- 237 (a note about Maywood enrollment -- that's 237 bodies, but around 45 of those are 4K students who are in the school for half days, so the FTE enrollment of Maywood is really about 215: 237 students minus 22 students -- half the number of 4K students, since 4K students only occupy the school half the day.)
Taylor Prairie: Capacity -- 364. Enrollment -- 403. (Same caveat with Maywood -- about 64 of those students are 4K students who are in the school only half the day.) So the FTE enrollment at TP is 371 students: 403 students minus 32 students (half the number of 4K students). That means TP is "over-capacity" by nine students, or roughly one student per classroom. The average number of students in TP classrooms is within the district's current class-size guidelines.
Winnequah: Capacity -- 576; enrollment -- 238.
Cottage Grove School -- Capacity -- 440. Enrollment -- 463. CG School is over capacity by 23 students, or one student per classroom. The average class size in CG School classrooms (grades 2 through 4) is still within the district's class size guidelines.
Glacial Drumlin: Capacity -- 750. Enrollment -- 719. GC is under its enrollment capacity by 31 students.
MGHS -- Capacity -- 1,000; enrollment -- 965 (although I would note the high school has had more than a 1,000 students enrolled as recently as 4 years ago.)
So, essentially, the "over-capacity" issues of the district come down to one classroom (23 students) at one school -- CG School. And I think it's instructive to note that this hasn't resulted in regular classrooms -- where students spend the vast majority of their school week -- exceeding district class-size guidelines. Instead, some non-core instruction (music/art) is being held in temporary arrangements.
Additional data can be found here (some of the enrollment data in these documents are from the 08-09 school year; Peter has posted the most current 3rd Friday enrollments for the 09-10 school year).
http://www.mononagrove.org/cms_files/resources/2008-2009EnrReport.pdf
http://www.mononagrove.org/cms_files/resources/Monona%20Grove%20School%20District%20Facilities%20Capacity.pdf
Capacity Schmacity. It's a hot potato that people have chronically used to put forward their own agenda about where kids should attend school in this district. But it's not particulary useful at determing the degree of overcrowding in a building.
Building capacities for school houses are highly subjective. It depends on how the building is being used and how the academic program is being offered. One must dig deeper to get a real picture of whether or not a building is "crowded."
For instance, here are some examples of questions that should be asked in an elementary school:
Is there a bona fide homeroom for every class? Can the cafeteria handle the lunch situation without making kids eat before 11 or after 1? Is the art or music teacher on a cart? Are special ed services or violin lessons being delivered in a former custodian closet? This is not an exhaustive list, but shows that building capacity has many shades of gray. It's not just a number.
I do agree with the above post that building capacity is complicated and is not even a fixed number. Capacity certainly is a function of variables such as class size, programming and scheduling of common areas: An example: if the capacity is limited by the lunch room size then scheduling an additional lunch period changes the capacity of the building.
"Wouldn't $6,000 pay for a fair amount of in-house teacher professional development for something like, say, effective methods for helping students who are struggling in math?"
Oh, Oh, please, please not another in-service day.
Patti McGinnis is studying something?
mmmmmmm
One of the recommendations of the study committee was to consider 4k-8 in each community. The board adopted the recommendations of the committee, and tasked them to the administration with the suggestion that relative to the 4K-8 portions that the costs be evaluated first.
Evaluation of the costs is a fairly complex task, and in order to meet the board's directive without disrupting the other work of the administration Craig has hired Patti to complete this evaluation.
I agree the board shouldn't dsrupt the administration with a task that is stupid given this k-8 scheme will cost money and we have a million dollar budget hole next year.
May I ask why the board did not revisit this study expenditure in light of next year's budget predicitons?
This study ISN'T stupid. Peter, if the last anonymous post was deleted by you, but this one above isn't, I question how you pick and choose what readers can comment on.
This study will address how we can manage enrollment through the use of currently available facilities. Without this study and a possible re-working of student population, we are at risk of needing to ADD space in Cottage Grove.
Based on current tax bills in both communities, as well as the economic climate in general, I highly doubt that additional Cottage Grove space will be an option anytime soon.
And I will say it again - I would assume that if you live in Monona and want your child to have the GD experience, you will be more than welcome to open-enroll your student there.
Why add space in Cottage Grove?
-- The elementary school buildings there aren't really overcrowded all that much.
-- Housing construction in CG hasn't amounted to much in the past few years, meaning fewer kids in the pipeline that what we have now.
-- Glacial Drumlin has room for more students.
If some space is needed in Cottage Grove, add a temporary classroom or two. It's been done before, and it's way cheaper than bussing in Cottage Grove kids to Monona or duplicating middle school programs in each community.
Based on "current tax bills in both communities, as well as the economic climate in general," shouldn't the board do what's going to cost the least?
"I agree the board shouldn't dsrupt the administration with a task that is stupid given this k-8 scheme will cost money and we have a million dollar budget hole next year."
I did not support the referendum. However, I would be very hesitant to support K-8 in Monona. I think we all just need to move-now wiht htat being said.
I do not think we need to build new buildings to accommodate space in CG. The district needs to look at closed bldgs for space.
Nobody has put forth any convincing evidence there is currently a crowding problem in CG that would warrant any new construction or reshuffling of the deck attendance-wise. None. Further, the current state of the economy and real estate market dictates that we just sit on our hands for awhile and see how things evolve enrollment-wise. Children and teachers are not chess board pieces. We cannot keep disrupting them to suit the political winds in the district. Leave them alone and let's move on with meeting instructional needs!
" I question how you pick and choose what readers can comment on."
The rule I enforce here is that comments should not assign motives to other people or groups (at least without evidence).
Calling a study "stupid" is an expression of opinion and is a valid comment from the community that all should be allowed to hear. Saying someone is doing something for this or that reason is a representation of something the commentor can't (normally) know.
I have tried to enforce this as evenly as possible. You will note that opinions are allowed to stand whether or not I agree with them - accusations of motivation go.
"Open enrollment" per se only applies between school districts, not within school districts. How children are distributed within the district is up to that district.
The district could give parents the option of choosing which building their children attend, but that would either entail increased transportation costs to the district and/or limiting the options of students who's families don't have the resources to provide their own transport.
Another rule: No claims about what others think that are unsupported.
Another rule: No claims about what others think that are unsupported.
Post your opinions but don't try to speak for anyone else.
It would be swell if you would post a list of the rules atone time. This making up rules as we go along is awful complicated and reminds of playing poker with Scott Geiger in 9 th grade. There was always a new poker rule-i had never heard of that stopped me from taking more of his money must of those rules had no merit
Curious why mentioning what current and past board members have supported is breaking one of your commandments?
I've posted the rules before, but here they are again:
1) Keep it civil.
2) Stick to your own opinions, don't claim to speak for anyone else. Don't assign motives to anyone else.
3) No unsupported allegations.
A statement "a board member wants to close maywood" is in violation of rule 2).
A statement "board member X stated he/she wanted to close maywood at the last board meeting" would be acceptable, provided that had actually happened.
P.S. I know people have said that I want to close Maywood. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact through my advocacy for attempts to keep Maywood affordable and to bring in students through open enrollment I believe I have done more to keep Maywood open than any other sitting board member.
I do believe that there is a lower limit to the number of students in the building that justifies keeping it open - I think we all agree on that (does anyone think we should keep it open for just 5 students?)- so the difference between any of us is just a matter of degree. I do believe that as a community we should have an honest debate about what the costs and benefits are.
Again, I think that issues around where the kids are educated should be up to the admin and the board needs to stay out of it.
OR-we are going to get brd members with interesting agendas.
so-obama coming to MG?
"offices of school superintendents in Madison, Sun Prairie, Monona Grove and Middleton-Cross Plains said they had not been contacted by the White House regarding a presidential visit."
So now you know everything I do.
well I do know someone who invited him to the district about 3 weeks ago.
I have been to several school board meetings where talking about curricu. and academics was not welcomed with open arms.
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