Friday, October 23, 2009

FLAT

The Express-Times reports on the enrollment at the NASD based on a report given at Monday’s School Board meeting by Dr. Lesky.

This comes as no surprise. Previously, enrollment by grade and class was included in school board meeting documents and in following it, one could see that class size from 9th grade (last year) down was smaller in each successive grade. Hence, when the senior class graduated in June, enrollment would drop for the following year.

Why the NASD decided to stop including this information, I don’t know, but it was particularly helpful in seeing individual class sizes within grade levels.

Another interesting point mentioned in the article is this: “In his report, Lesky said 86 children are enrolled in charter or cyber charter schools at a cost to the district of $625,564 this year.”

In other words, each of these students costs the district $7274 per year to educate.

By comparison, the 2009-2010 budgeted expense for NASD’s 4,710 students is $65,165,545. Deduct the above amount and students from this figure and you have 4624 students at a cost of $64,539,981 or $13,958 per student.

The “cost” to the district for students opting to enroll in charter or cyber-charter schools is actually a tremendous savings (52% less than those being educated in the NASD).

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