The Stoughton Area School District will continue to see slightly declining enrollment for the next few years, but then a recent increase in area housing development will begin to stabilize those numbers by the middle of the decade.
That’s the latest forecast from Nick Johnson of Roffers Consulting, who gave an update at the Monday, Oct. 3 board of education meeting.
Johnson noted a few key takeaways from this year’s study, including a stabilization of birth rates in the district over the last 10 years after several decades of decline, an increase in housing development, and a large millennial population that suggests a pending “baby boom” of sorts. He said enrollment stabilization will “likely occur in the mid-2020s.”
“Continued decreases over the next couple years are really just due to large graduating classes not being replaced by incoming kindergarteners,” he explained. “When births were high in the 2000s in the district, those are current high schoolers. When births went lower in the 2010s, those are current elementary students.”
Enrollment slightly down in 2022-23
Student enrollment is down slightly after the annual “Third Friday” student count, district business director Erica Pickett told board members. Including online students, the district has 2,743 students enrolled this school year, compared with 2,763 last year. The district has a net loss of 124 students through open enrollment this school year, compared to a net loss of 107 last year.
“They’re not horrible numbers,” she said. “(It’s) fairly in line with what we’re expecting. Our high school classes are larger than our incoming elementary age kids, so that is primarily where we continue to see a shift in terms of kids.”
