Kindergarten, early learning enrollment fluctuates
Kindergarten enrollment for the Butler Area School District dropped in 2020, but is slowly on the rise for the upcoming school year.
In 2019, the district had 430 students enrolled in kindergarten. That number dropped to 367 in 2020.
Superintendent Brian White said the district does not have a projected number for the upcoming kindergarten class, but as of June 24, 301 students have enrolled.
“We still have a lot of families waiting to see what next year is going to look like,” White said at a June 14 school board meeting. “If we get regulations like we did last year, I think families may prefer to wait another year to see if they can get a normal school experience for their kindergartners.”
Beth Glew, executive director of early learning programs for Early Learning Connections, said she believes parents of young children didn’t favor virtual offerings, and wanted to wait for a more standard school year.
“Virtual for 3- and 4-year-olds is not optimal,” she said. “Virtual programming was difficult, honestly. We felt good with the program we offered, but it really was a difference.”
Early head start
Early Learning Connections offers early head start and head start programs in Butler County. The organization allowed limited in-person capacity in the 2020 school year, along with virtual programming, but only reached about 75% of its 325-student limit.
Dassa McKinney Elementary School in the Moniteau School District actually saw an increase from 82 kindergartners in 2019 to 87 in 2020. Its principal, Dustin Thompson, said enrollment for the upcoming school year is “a tad low” at 74 students, but he thinks it will reach the average number by the semester’s start. “We’re seeing more and more students participate in preschool programs,” he said. “I think the enrollment numbers are more directly tied to population changes. Our population just isn’t really dense here.”
Eric Ritzert, superintendent of Karns City Area School District, said population changes have been cause for decreasing enrollment in the district for years. He said the district would have 100 to 110 per kindergarten class in the 2000s. “We try to work with preschool programs and try to get families to enroll their children,” Ritzert said. “I was looking at the data and the district’s population dropped about 800 people in the last 10 years.”
Steady enrollment
The school district has had steady kindergarten enrollment lately, however, with 81 students registered in 2019, 84 in 2020 and 77 so far for the upcoming year.
School districts throughout Butler County allow enrollment throughout the summer and even throughout the year. Normally, more enrollments come in as the start of the year approaches.
Susan Miller, assistant superintendent of Slippery Rock Area School District, said the district is seeing a downturn in early enrollment. “Our preliminary numbers are down on kindergarten,” Miller said. “Until that first day of school comes, we really don’t know how many kindergartners we’ll have.”
Seneca Valley School District saw a drop from 528 kindergartners in the 2019-20 school year to 486 for 2020-21. Enrollment numbers for the upcoming school year are not yet available.
White said the Butler district won’t know how many kindergartners it will have until the school year begins. “If it’s a normal year, I think we may have more students,” White said. “That’s the challenge right now.”
