By DAVE SCHULTZ
The 2022-23 school year at Bluffton-Harrison schools is off to a good start, and the enrollment numbers support that conclusion.
While the official count, known as the Average Daily Membership, won’t be taken until later in the fall, School Superintendent Brad Yates said the opening day of school last year showed the district could be on track to its highest ADM when that number is calculated.
Last year, Yates told the board, the district grew by slightly more than 83 students over the year before — a measurement that may be due in part to the easing of health concerns caused by the COVID-19 virus. This year, if the opening day enrollments hold up through the ADM calculation, the district could be up another 25 or 26 students.
“All told, we’re very excited about the growth for our school district this year,” Yates told board members Angie Sheets, Trent White, Julie Thompson, Bruce Holland, and Mike Murray.
The district has 1,744 students as of the first day of school. Yates said that’s a number that could change as families settle down at the start of school and decide exactly where their children will be enrolled. One hundred of those students are preschoolers, which will not be included in the ADM numbers that will be reported to the state.
The early numbers show the elementary school had a first-day attendance of 767, which is up four students from the 2021-22 end of year number of 763. The middle school starts with 603 students, which is up 54 from the end of the last school year, and the high school has 474 student students, up 41 from the end of the last school year.
The middle school has 166 eighth-graders and 161 fifth-graders, the largest two classes in the upper grades. There are 106 sophomores and 108 seniors in the high school.
The 1,744 students is substantially higher than the 20-year low, which was 1,314 students.
In response to a question from Holland, Yates said the state financial support to the school district is approximately $6,500 per student.
Yates also told the board that of the school district’s 123 teachers, every one of them were considered effective or highly effective during the 2021-22 school year. Those two categories are the top rankings for teacher evaluation. Fifty-nine were considered effective and 64 were considered highly effective.
Also Monday, a public hearing was held on teachers’ compensation and collective bargaining as the district put together its budget. No one spoke at the public hearing.
Yates led the board members through a budget workshop. The budget will be the topic of another public hearing on Sept. 19 and is on track to be adopted Oct. 10.
daves@news-banner.com
