At the Nov. 5 meeting of the Windsor Unified School District Allison Griggs, program coordinator for educational services, presented the annual enrollment numbers for the district, and the grim pattern of falling enrollment continues to be cause for concern.
“2019 was the first year we dropped below 5,000 enrollment as a district, with 4,898,” Griggs said. “But then we dropped by another 198 students to have 4,700.”
The annual count is taken on the second Wednesday of October every year.
In addition to the raw numbers, Griggs’ presentation included demographic and year over year comparisons.
Demographically, the trend towards increasing Hispanic students continued, with 37% of students identifying as white and 56% identifying as Hispanic, with the rest made up of multiple ethnicities, Asian, American Indian, African American, Pacific Islander and Filipino students.
With a few notable exceptions, student numbers at each site have declined, with the exceptions being Cali Calmecac, who opened a Transitional Kindergarten program for the first time this year; Windsor Oaks Academy, the high school’s continuation school; and the North County Consortium for students with disabilities.
The change of enrollment per school from the 2019-20 to the 2020-21 school year is as follows: Mattie Washburn Elementary: 531/448; Brooks Elementary: 553/546; Cali Calmecac Language Academy: 1177/1196; Windsor Middle School: 812/771; Windsor High School: 1659/1583; Windsor Oaks Academy: 32/33; North Bay Met Academy: 68/66; and North County Consortium: 48/55.
Also detailed in the report was the per site end of year losses. That is, the numbers of students who start the school year at a school, but don’t finish it. Those numbers show some surprising changes, including: Mattie Washburn: 531/524; Brooks Elementary: 553/531; Cali Calmecac: 1177/1174; WMS: 812/809; WHS: 1659/1618; WOA: 32/34; NBM: 68/76; and NCC: 48/45.
“When (comparing) end of year, we don’t lose a lot of kids, except for Windsor High School. My first assumption was that it must be the matriculation to North Bay Met and Windsor Oaks, but if you look , their numbers are not going up by end of year. In 2019/2020, its 41 students,” said Lisa Saxon, educational services director. “It begs the question, what happens and where are they going? … I’d be very interested to track that data my carefully to find out why they are not finishing out the year?”
High school assistant principal Amy Ziegler added that she thinks addition info would be even more illuminating. “I’d like a good study to find out at what point in the year do they leave, and in what grades.”
Finally, the report showed the numbers of students per grade, but in some ways these numbers aren’t illuminating as some grades, like TK are artificially restricted. However, it shows the general trend of the upper grades being significantly larger that the lower grades.
“Basically, our senior and junior class is 462, and our first grade is 283,” commented trustee Rich Carnation. “So, roughly, if we don’t pick up students from out of the area our district in 12 years will be half the size.”
While the district normally regains some students, who are Windsor residents but go to elementary schools out of the area, and the high school tends to draw in out of district transfers, there is no question that Windsor is not immune from the overall trend of falling enrollment.
“Two things to consider, if keep this trend hard decisions are going to have to be made on personnel,” said Superintendent Jeremy Decker. “But … we need to advertise. North Bay Met, the cores at the high schools, we are in a different kind of world where we could become a regional school and I think we’re going to have to think differently about advertising and increasing enrollment outside of Windsor residents.”
Advertising and outreach were discussed amongst board members, with a consensus that a comprehensive communications and promotion plan should be created, and the Decker should prepare and advertising plan for the future.
Stephanie Ahmad also suggested that perhaps the increased enrollment in grades 11 and 12 indicates students who could now drive being able to choose for themselves to attend WHS, and wondered if the coming of the SMART train would allow for additional opportunities to gain students.
