City Schools Decatur still hasn’t received official enrollment counts — typically available by late October — nor has it received an updated projection report. Nevertheless one thing remains clear: growth isn’t slowing.
In mid August the unofficial total enrollment was an all-time high of 5,041, a roughly seven percent increase over last year’s final official enrollment. CSD enrollment has grown by 7 to 12 percent every year since 2009.
Earlier this year Superintendent David Dude hired Hilliard, Ohio firm DeJong-Richter to compile projection numbers, which he hoped to have by early summer. The predominant hang-ups, he said, are getting correct data from DeKalb County and also figuring out a formula to predict accurate kindergarten counts.
“Ideally I’d like to project the kindergarten class five to 10 years out,” Dude said. “In most places it’s easier to do that since kindergarten counts and birth rates are very similar. That isn’t the case in Decatur where a lot of children aren’t born here, but move in before kindergarten.”
What he does know is that this year each class, kindergarten through fifth grade, has over 400 students, this in a system where for decades graduating classes were below 200. In the last seven years the kindergarten class has been double the size of the senior class.
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