By Keighla Schmidt, Staff Writer

In spite of attracting 89 fresh students with new magnet programs, enrollment has fallen by 102 students in the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District.

Last year the Oct. 1 enrollment count was 9,999; this year it’s 9,897.

Director of Planning and Technology Connie Erickson said the overall decline is not atypical when she presented the report to the Nov. 5 to the District 191 School Board.

“It is a natural evolution of our community as part of a larger population trend,” she said. “None of these trends are unique to Burnsville; these are trends statewide and nationwide.”

The district’s enrollment peaked in the 1997-98 school year with 11,496 students. Every year since then, enrollment has steadily declined. A plateau of 9,500 students is expected in a few years.

Magnetic attraction?

The only schools in the district that recorded an increase in students this year are the ones housing magnet schools and programs: Harriet Bishop and William Byrne elementary schools, Metcalf Junior High School and Envision Academy of the Arts, which is included in the Burnsville High School head count.

The magnets opened this fall and are part of a state-mandated racial integration effort with the Lakeville Area Public School District.

The enrollment at Harriet Bishop, now a gifted and talented magnet school, increased by 43 students from 599 last year to 642 this year. That calculated increase includes 77 students who came to the school specifically for the magnet program. Forty of those came from other District 191 schools and the remaining 37 from other districts.

At William Byrne, a Science, Engineering, Technology and Math (STEM) magnet school, the total school population increased by 95, from 478 to 573 students this year. Included in the student increase are 86 newly-enrolled students at the magnet school; 66 transferred from other district schools and the remaining 20 came from outside.

The overall enrollment at Metcalf in 2009 compared to the school’s 2008 count was unchanged at 684; but 106 new STEM program students enrolled at the junior high. In that increase are 97 intra-district transfers and nine students from other districts.

Superintendent Randy Clegg said a large portion of those 97 intra-district students came from Eagle Ridge Junior High School, which dropped by 93 students from 851 last year to 758 this year.

With that drop, the junior high in Savage is no longer the largest District 191 junior high school. Now Nicollet Junior High School houses the most with 762 students.

At Burnsville High School, enrollment jumped by 100 students. The jump from 2,277 from last year to 2,377 this year includes 70 new Envision students; 23 from an outside school district and 47 that transferred from a District 191 school.

The School Board has directed administrators to look into starting a gifted and talented junior high school magnet program to vertically align with Harriet Bishop’s program. Clegg said that could increase the number of students coming into District 191 next year. A recommendation as to which junior high school should house the new magnet is expected to be presented to the School Board at its next meeting.

Savage schools

Enrollment was down at the remaining elementary schools in Savage, M.W. Savage and Hidden Valley.

Hidden Valley remains the largest elementary school in the district even with the decrease of 15 students from last year’s count of 659 students to this year’s 644.

At M.W. Savage the decrease was a modest three students, from 559 to 556 this year.

Looking ahead

In conjunction with the Oct. 1 enrollment counts, which are sent to the Minnesota Department of Education for finalization and used in calculating the district’s budget, Erickson went through enrollment projections.

To develop projections, Erickson said she looks solely at past patterns.

When the district’s enrollment peaked in the 1997-98 school year, the incoming kindergarten class was larger than the outgoing senior class by 117 students. That trend of larger incoming classes continued until the 2001-02 school year when they were nearly equal with 856 kindergarteners and 859 graduates.

“Since (1997-98) we’ve experienced smaller incoming kindergarten classes and larger outgoing 12th-grade classes,” Erickson said.

The incoming classes have continued to decrease to the point where there is nearly a 200 student deficit with 922 seniors compared to 723 kindergarteners this year.

Following the meeting, Erickson said the projections, while they go out to the 2014-15 school year, are really only intended to give an accurate short-term estimation for planning purposes.

Keighla Schmidt can be reached at kschmidt@swpub.com