- April 28, 2024
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The Flagler County School District has about 200 fewer students this year than it did at the same time last year, according to district officials.
On Sept. 24, 2012, the district had 12,962 students. On Monday, it had 12,787, School District Finance Director Tom Tant said.
"The trend has been down," Tant said. "Every month last year we had a decrease." Last year is the first year Tant has seen such a steady drop in student numbers since he arrived in 1990, he said.
But though the decrease was steady, it was a trickle of students leaving, not a stream: The district lost about 2% of its students over the course of the 2012-2013 school year.
Officials took the losses into account when budgeting for this year, Tant said, and the district's target number of students for this school year is 12,670.
"We're about where we thought we'd be at this time," he said.
School Board Chairman Andy Dance said he hoped the numbers would level off. “The big question is, are we going to sustain enrollment, or are we going to drop over the course of the year?” he said.
No programs are in danger of being cut at this point because of the low enrollment, Dance said.
“As long as we stay within our budget, we’ll be fine. It would be helpful if our numbers start to stabilize,” he said. “We all want to see vibrant classrooms, new kids, and the schools filling up.”
