By the fifth day of school, the enrollment numbers at established schools in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District were on target.
The enrollment numbers jumped, however, at the schools in the Dougherty Valley, said Christine Williams, assistant superintendent of educational services. It is this constant growth that attributed to the 1.9 percent increase between projected enrollment and actual enrollment by the fifth day of classes.
“We aren’t sure whether it’s because houses are selling more quickly or if the number of students per household is larger than we expected,” said Williams referring to a study a demographer did of the Dougherty Valley for the school district last spring.
The study was supposed to give the school district a projection of the Dougherty Valley for the next 10 years. Williams said the school district will have the demographer once again assess households in the Dougherty Valley this fall.
The district’s projected enrollment numbers affect the annual budget. Because schools receive state funding based on student attendance, over-projecting enrollment can alter a budget significantly. Years ago, explained Williams, districts in Contra Costa were over-projecting their enrollments.
“A lot of school districts got caught with diminishing enrollment and didn’t meet projections. It is a huge hit to the budget,” said Williams. These days, districts like the San Ramon Valley Unified School District are more conservative with enrollment numbers.
“You’d rather have more than fewer. It’s good for the district. It’s a healthy budget,” said Williams. “This is a situation you want to be in.”
While the additional students bring up costs like textbooks and resources, these students will also generate additional money for the district, which receives funds according to attendance figures. In the end, the expenditure and revenue even out.
While Monte Vista High School was projected at 2,508, and came in at a close 2,521, Hidden Hills Elementary School in the Dougherty Valley was projected at 474 and on Day 5 had 666 students.
The district is constantly re-evaluating growth in Dougherty Valley. In the case of Hidden Hills, the district foresaw in the spring that its projection was too low and worked with developers to accommodate the growth, said Williams.
Dougherty Valley is building up at a brisk pace with two new schools opening this year: Windemere Ranch Middle School and Quail Run Elementary School. The district has been closely following development in Dougherty Valley to make sure that schools are being built out at the right time.
At Coyote Creek Elementary School, 125 students had to be moved to Quail Run Elementary School, which is now sharing a campus with Coyote Creek. The impact to the overflow students is minimal, said Williams.
“Initially it’s not a huge impact, but it may be down the road,” said Williams. As long as Quail Run is in portables on Coyote Creek’s campus, students do not have to travel far. If the number of students continues to grow, the overflow will eventually have to travel to Quail Run’s future permanent campus, which is roughly a mile away, said Williams.
Another surprise to the district is the influx of lower-grade students like kindergartners and first-graders.
“The difficulty right now is that the students who are coming in are much younger,” said Williams. “There are more lower grade levels than upper.”
At some schools in Dougherty Valley, the number of students was actually lower than expected. At Windemere Ranch the district was expecting around 400 students, but by the fifth day of school, there were only 371 students. The district is still expecting further enrollment at Windemere, so in the meantime the middle school is presently overstaffed, said Roberta Silverstein, assistant superintendent of human resources.
“For some of the schools in the Dougherty Valley we actually staffed anticipating that those schools would continue to grow over the school year,” said Silverstein.
Even though the district is taking on more students than expected, Silverstein said there is a teacher in every classroom. Some classrooms have a temporary teacher. When enrollment numbers are confirmed, a permanent teacher may be assigned, said Silverstein.
The district will make final staffing allocations based on Day 10 enrollment. This year, the district had a bigger pool of teacher applications. The district received 920 applications, 212 more than last year.
