Wednesday, October 11, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Continued from page 1
ADM (average daily member-
ship — a number that does
not correspond exactly to per-
student funding, since some
students are counted differ-
ently for funding purposes).
Coming in 12 students below
projections means the dis-
trict would come up short in
expected state funding to the
tune of roughly $90,576. Yet,
the numbers can shift, even in
the middle of the year.
Superintendent Curt Scholl
cautioned that it is too early to
assess any impact on budget
or staffing.
“We do not know if this
will be the total impact, how-
ever,” he said. “Last year we
gained 25 students after the
first couple months of school,
which drastically reduced the
financial impact of the enroll-
ment drop.”
Numbers at Sisters High
School are actually up, with
nine additional students added
since the end of the 2016-17
school year, for a total of 441
across four grades. Sisters
Middle School is down just
slightly, with 6.5 fewer stu-
dents, totaling 321. Sisters
Elementary School saw the
biggest drop in student popu-
lation, 16 down from the end
of last year, and falling 36 stu-
dents below projections.
School board member Jay
Wilkins noted that projec-
tions for the size of the sec-
ond-grade class were way off,
which skewed the numbers.
“The projections going for-
ward have to be more realis-
tic,” he said.
Sisters Elementary School
currently has 307 students
enrolled.
Enrollment in Sisters
schools has been on a declin-
ing trend for several years.
Because each family’s cir-
cumstance is different and a
handful of families with sev-
eral children can affect num-
bers significantly in a small
district, it’s hard to pinpoint
exact causes of an enroll-
ment decline. Lack of housing
and economic opportunities
for young families is widely
considered to be a significant
factor.
“I think the drop in ele-
mentary enrollment says more
about our community struggle
of affordable housing and
family-wage-earning jobs,”
said Scholl. “This tends to
have a bigger impact on young
families. These are the factors
I would attribute the decline to
in Sisters.”
And, while Sisters offers
a variety of innovative pro-
grams, there are other inno-
vative programs online and
through charter academies that
compete for Sisters’ students.
Home-schooling also plays a
role.
The environment for tra-
ditional “brick-and-mortar”
schools is much more compet-
itive today than in years past.
“It used to be that if you
lived in this zip code, you went
to this school,” Wilkins said.
Now, families, as education
consumers, have options.
Wilkins notes that there
are 96 eligible students in
the Sisters School District
who go to school elsewhere
or in a non-SSD format. As
of September, he calculates
that 40 students are home-
schooled; 20 attend the Baker
Web Academy; 16 attend
Redmond schools (some
of those because it’s geo-
graphically closer); 11 attend
Black Butte School in Camp
Sherman; and four go to Bend
for school.
Sisters receives 67 inter-
district transfers — 51 from
Redmond; one from Black
Butte; and 15 from Bend.
Sisters doesn’t have access
to numbers from Redmond
Proficiency Academy, which
also competes for students.
Wilkins says that families
choose other alternatives for a
variety of reasons.
“I think there’s been some
bad customer service experi-
ences in the past,” he said.
Some students have
demanding pursuits outside of
school and other options are
more flexible.
“Our response to that is
being much more student-cen-
tered,” Wilkins said. “We may
not be able to [do everything]
for everybody — but can we
work with students?”
Sisters also offers online
education and can offer some
flexibility to students who are
traveling or pursuing other
activities.
“They can be an Outlaw,”
Wilkins said. “How do we
emphasize that, fine-tune it,
and repeat that?”
Wilkins is serving with fel-
low board member Stephen
King and Superintendent
Scholl on a committee tasked
to “get after the marketing
program on a more formal
basis.”
Wilkins believes the district
should focus first on bringing
back into the fold students
who live here already, but
who aren’t enrolled in SSD.
Then the district can work
on attracting other students
in, and work with the City of
Sisters and other entities on
the structural issues with hous-
ing and employment opportu-
nities that put a damper on the
ability of young families to
move here and make a go of it
in Sisters schools.
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Graphic courtesy:
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