Local schools report 10-day numbers
By News-Argus Staff
Published in News on September 11, 2008 1:34 PM
Despite a tropical storm, bus delays caused by heavy rains, an early dismissal and a holiday -- all in the first 10 days of school -- enrollment is up by 44 students in Wayne County Public Schools, officials announced.
Enrollment for the 33 schools is 19,377. The first 10 days of school are the marker used by the state to determine staff needs and funding.
The first day of school, Aug. 25, enrollment started at 18,267.
At individual schools across the county, increases and decreases were slight, said Robert Yancey, director for testing and NCWISE.
"We had a total of 21 schools see an increase in their enrollments from this time last year, with four schools seeing increases of more than 40 students," he said.
Those four schools included Grantham, Tommy's Road Elementary, Wayne Early/Middle College High and Wayne School of Engineering, which added 78 students this year.
Three schools -- Eastern Wayne High, Goldsboro High and Rosewood High -- saw decreases of more than 70 students over the previous year. At the same time, numbers at two of those schools rose over the first 10 days of school.
Goldsboro High started with 492 students and now reports 589, while Eastern Wayne had 1,093 on the first day and now has 1,169.
Some of the declining numbers were attributed to the district's larger senior class that graduated in the spring, Yancey said, as well as new grade levels at Wayne School of Engineering and Wayne Early/Middle, which were added this fall.
All in all, Superintendent Dr. Steven Taylor called 2008-09 the smoothest transition to a new school year he has seen. Transportation also contributed to the good start.
Raymond Smith, transportation director, said efforts are still being made to look at parent requests for bus stop changes and improvements to routes.