Gary Moskowitz
More than 600 students who were expected to attend Glendale schools
by the end of this week never showed up, according to first-week
enrollment figures collected Friday.
Glendale Unified School District officials predicted that about
430 fewer students would attend Glendale schools this year, based on
enrollment projections made last spring.
District officials said that a drop in birth rates, as well as a
growing number of families with children moving from Glendale and a
rising cost of living in parts of Glendale, could be the cause of a
decline in enrollment, specifically in south Glendale.
Glendale Unified School District middle schools and high schools
began the 2003-04 school year Wednesday, and traditional calendar
elementary schools began the new school year Thursday. Year-round
elementary schools started the new school year in July and August.
About 28,971 students were enrolled in the district and accounted
for by Friday. One year ago, 29,634 students were enrolled in the
district, said Craig Larimer, the district's financial analyst.
"It's very shaky data at this point," Larimer said Friday. "We
expect to have a lot more kids showing up next week. So far, we can
see that our La Crescenta schools are over what we projected in many
cases."
The district finished the 2002-03 school year with 29,795
students. District officials predict having an enrollment of 29,365
students by the end of this year, because students are expected to
continue enrolling through fall and winter.
Several hundred of this year's "no-shows" were students who were
enrolled at Glendale and Hoover high schools but did not come to
school this week, Larimer said.
Glendale High, even with more than 200 fewer students than were
expected, had about 40 more freshmen show up than were expected,
Co-principal Lou Stewart said.
"We will probably need some teachers to teach an extra class,"
Stewart said. "Teachers who do that get paid extra to teach during
their planning period and do their planning after school."
Class sizes in seventh grade through 12th grade will have a
class-size average of 34 students this year, officials said. The
district participates in class-size reduction in ninth-grade English
and math classes, so those classes will be kept at 20 students.
"We are bigger than expected," said Linda Evans, Crescenta Valley
High School's co-principal. "We are probably up about 100 from last
year. We got about 59 more ninth-graders than we thought, which
means we will have to open a few more sections of ninth-grade English
and math."
Toll Middle School enrolled about 1,330 students in its two grades
this year, up 60 from the 1,270 that attended the school last year,
Principal Jan Homan said.
"There was a larger incoming [seventh-grade] class this year, so
we planned accordingly," Homan said. Popular Toll classes like
woodshop and music had about 36 or 38 students by the end of the
week, while less popular classes like eighth-grade geometry, had
about 20 students, Homan said.
