Enrollment is on a downward slope
MALIBU CITY HALL — The moratorium restricting the number of non-district students who can attend schools in Santa Monica and Malibu has negatively impacted state and federal funding, according to findings from the Superintendent’s Office.
A presentation at the Board of Education meeting here on Thursday showed that while enrollment has steadily decreased over the past few years — resulting in a better teacher-to-student ratio — funding into the district has taken a hit.
Aside from the usual commendations and contract approvals, the bimonthly school board meeting focused primarily on Measure BB business. Passed in November of last year, the bond measure allocates $268 million to improve and upgrade school facilities and classroom instruction in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.
It appears it’s crunch time for district officials, with the Facilities Master Plan due for public comment this spring. Superintendent Dianne Talarico was eager to jumpstart a discussion with the board on discerning the ideal size for the district — as well as each school — in terms of enrollment.
Members of the Ad Hoc Facilities Committee were on hand, including Chairwoman Gleam Davis and Ralph Mechur, reiterating the importance of identifying an ideal student body number to best allocate Measure BB money.
“Some schools are underutilized now and some are at capacity,” Mechur explained.
Discussions centered around whether the board should or shouldn’t lift its current moratorium on the number of inter-district students. The board placed the moratorium a few years ago to alleviate overcrowded classrooms and the high teacher-to-student ratio.
But the moratorium has also resulted in a loss of revenue to the district, missing out on an estimated $5.1 million in 2006-07 from the decline in enrollment.
“The declining enrollment was really a conscious decision made by our school board and former superintendent,” Talarico said during her presentatio<None>n. “It’s not a shock to the members of the board who have been here since that time that enrollment would be declining.”
Starting with the 2001-02 school year, enrollment declined steadily in the elementary level, but in the middle and high school levels, enrollment actually increased until it reached its peak in 2003-04. The district has lost about 940 student since that time.
In the district’s middle schools, enrollment has steadily declined. In the three high schools — Santa Monica, Malibu and Olympic — enrollment started to decline after the peak year, but then jumped up by 11 students in the current school year.
Though Malibu High School is statistically overcrowded, the school does not give off the feeling of being overcrowded, said School Board member Kathy Wisnicki, who lives in Malibu.
“It’s not as crowded as the report indicates,” she said.
There are currently 11,902 students in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.
Meanwhile, staffing has actually increased since the 2004-05 school year, the report found.
It is important to stabilize staffing levels to meet the current student population, Talarico said.
School officials predict that enrollment will continue to decline over the next six years, reaching a low of about 11,175 students for the 2011-12 school year.
“All of this is being said because we’ve got to begin to think about and call into question how big we want the [district] to be, because it has serious implications for Measure BB resources,” Talarico said.
But school board member Jose Escarce had a different set of findings. Staring at a fact sheet from School Works, an educational consulting group, enrollment is expected to stabilize over the next few years, he said.
In 1988, the district’s enrollment stood at 8,900 students and did not break the 10,000 mark until 1993. In 1998, enrollment peaked at about 12,800.
With the roughly 400-student difference during the 10-year period from 1988 to 1998, Escarce estimates that roughly 200 were residents of the district and 200 were not.
Based on birth rates in the city, School Works predicted increasing enrollment.
“Hopefully, that prediction won’t be wrong,” Escarce said. “I wouldn’t jump to some sort of doomsday scenario about continuously declining enrollment.”
Talarico replied that she is not “an alarmist,” and that she wanted to provide a snapshot of where the district currently stands in comparison to six years ago.
“If we decide to become smaller, or if we decide to make any adjustments to our current staffing level with current enrollment level, it will be tied to programs,” she said.
A community workshop to discuss enrollment will be held on Feb. 13 at the SMMUSD Headquarters — 1651 16th Street in Santa Monica — at 4 p.m.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 3, 2007. Read the original PDF.