One of the many important issues facing Northshore School District currently is the significant imbalance in student enrollment.

Over-enrollment and under-enrollment are occurring within a number of schools, which is causing serious problems.

Susan Stoltzfus, Northshore’s Director of Communications, says, “The problem of under-enrollment is especially serious at the secondary level, where continuing to offer certain courses is a struggle due to fewer students. For example, Timbercrest Junior High no longer offers French to its students. This definitely negatively impacts students who would like to take four years of this foreign language, but because they are unable to take it in junior high, they can only take it in high school for a total of three years. In time, when these situations keep on occurring, there is a roll-up effect that begins at the elementary level and continues through the high school.”

Stoltzfus continues to explain how, conversely, over-enrollment has its own set of problems, as it taxes central facilities, such as libraries, gyms, music rooms and restrooms, beyond their original capacity.

She cites Fernwood Elementary as an example: “There are currently about 600 students at this school and due to lack of space, they can’t have kindergarteners here. The kindergarteners have to go to another school, which now has six kindergarten classes and can no longer hold anymore.”

What is happening can be attributed to a housing boom in the northwest portion of the district, which is attracting more families to the area, while at the same time, the urban growth boundary is restricting growth in the eastern portion of the district. As a result, some schools are overcrowded and some have extra room.

For the past 10 years, the district’s Enrollment Demographics Task Force has been analyzing housing patterns, population trends, employment statistics and school capacities and they have concluded that these imbalances will continue.

“This trend is here to stay,” comments Stoltzfus, “and it won’t change anytime soon, so something must be done to balance the situation in order to ensure a high quality education for every student. Providing equity in education for all of our students is our goal.”

The district will hold a series of public discussions in the coming months in order to give opportunities for input and feedback on possible solutions to this problem. According to Stoltzfus, there are no immediate plans to close any schools. The idea is to re-balance student enrollment by using existing school capacity.

She adds, “We will look at many options, including re-drawing boundaries. This has happened in the past, but it has actually been proposed more than it has occurred. We don’t do this kind of thing lightly because we know the anxiety it creates among children, parents, teachers and the community as a whole.”

By next fall, it is anticipated that the district will present a specific plan to address the problem. The final decision rests with the school board and implementation of any changes will not occur until fall 2007.

“We want to help parents understand the imbalance issues and how they negatively impact student learning,” says Stoltzfus. “Although having more seats than we have students district-wide may seem like a good thing to people because it means smaller schools and classes, there’s a flipside that’s negative.

“Funding is determined by the number of students and when there are fewer students, there is less money for education in the district. This is the bottom line.”