Preliminary figures show that more students than ever have
enrolled at San Benito High School, but the building moratorium and
declining enrollment at Hollister School District have high school
officials worried that they too might begin to see fewer students
and state dollars.
Hollister – Preliminary figures show that more students than ever have enrolled at San Benito High School, but the building moratorium and declining enrollment at Hollister School District have high school officials worried that they too might begin to see fewer students and state dollars.
“Hollister School District is declining and whenever they have declining enrollment we know that it will affect us,” SBHS Principal Debbie Padilla said.
California’s public schools are funded by the state government based on average daily attendance (ADA). That means when ADA increases, state funding increases.
Over the past 12 years, student enrollment – and subsequently ADA – at San Benito High School has increased steadily. The school’s student population has grown from 1,971 in 1993 to 2,931 this year. However, fewer students are enrolling in the Hollister School District, the high school’s largest source of new students, which SBHS officials believe may signal a drop in enrollment at their school.
According to 2004 growth predictions, enrollment in the San Benito High School District will drop only slightly during the next three years and then level off, but Superintendent Jean Burns Slater said the district will continue to keep an eye on its budget.
“Having fewer students and less money may not be dire,” she said. “It doesn’t mean we have to start handing out lay-off notices, but it could mean that we hire fewer teachers.”
It is not clear exactly how much money the district could lose as the result of declining enrollment in future years, Slater said. But to minimize the impact of declining enrollment in future years, the district will continue to spend prudently and try to increase average daily attendance, Slater said.
Although enrollment is up this year, attendance during the first three weeks of school was down compared to last year. For example, on the first day of school 97 percent of students attended classes. Over the next three weeks, that percentage dropped steadily and by the Friday of week three, only 92 percent of students came to school.
In order to increase average daily attendance, district officials are working closely with the school’s resource officer, Sheriff’s Deputy Rich Brown, to make sure habitually truant students make it to class. Brown will call students, visit their homes and set up individual conferences with families to make sure students who are supposed to be in school actually go to school. The district is also continuing its efforts in conjunction with a county-wide attendance campaign. The campaign includes talking with students and parents about the costs of absenteeism and calling families regularly to make sure they realize the importance of attendance, Slater said.
Attendance, Slater said, is crucial. The district looses somewhere between $30 to $40 each day for each student that is absent.
“It’s very significant and that doesn’t even include the re-teaching costs,” Slater said, referring to the amount of time it takes teachers to teach the information that a student missed while being absent from school.
The reason fewer students are in enrolling in San Benito County’s public schools is clear.
“The declining enrollment in this county is a direct result of the building moratorium,” County Superintendent of Schools Tim Foley said. “We’ve known it would for a long time, and it has been part of our ongoing discussions, but it has taken a toll.”
The building moratorium, imposed by the Regional Water Quality Control Board, banned the city from issuing new construction permits in Hollister after 15 million gallon sewer spill in May of 2002. The moratorium is scheduled to be lifted in 2007.
Foley said the moratorium has hurt San Benito County schools and will continue to do so in the future. However, he hopes local schools can stay in the black.
“At this point (SBC schools) have to do everything they can to retain students and cut expenses wherever possible,” he said.
Foley understands that cutting expenses and maintaining high academic standards is not always easy, but believes that some of the funding pressure can be relieved by careful city planning.
“As a community we should be using this time to develop a structured plan for sustainable growth,” he said.
Brett Rowland covers education for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or br******@fr***********.com.
