District enrollment declines by 118 students

By Megan Kelley
Staff Writer
LAKE ORION — During its meeting on Nov. 8, the Lake Orion Community Schools Board of Education received its annual enrollment presentation from Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Adam Weldon.
This is an annual presentation given to the board after fall student count day has taken place, and serves as a snapshot of where the district currently is in terms of enrollment and in comparison to previous student count numbers.
“I just want to remind everyone that we are looking at a snapshot of our student count. Attendance in schools is a very fluid thing, and I say fluid in that our attendance today is different than what it was two weeks ago, different than what it was a month ago and it is different than what it will be in the next weeks and months,” Weldon said. “It’s something that can change daily.”
Fall student count day took place on Oct. 4. Weldon started off the presentation by providing a breakdown of enrollment by school.
At the elementary level, Blanche Sims (438 total students), Carpenter (471) and Stadium Drive (465) have a student count that lands in the mid-400 range while Paint Creek (532) and Orion Oaks (519) are in the lower 500 range, and Webber (494) teeters in between.
Both Scripps and Oakview middle schools have similar student counts, with Scripps holding 482 students and Oakview housing 453 students. At Waldon however, the student count is much higher at 540.
Middle school count has been a hot topic for the board over the past few years with the board approving a slight redistricting of the Scripps and Oakview boundaries in order to balance the numbers at those schools.
“Two years ago we did decide to redistrict an area from Scripps to Oakview to balance our middle school numbers more equally. You’ll notice that change reflected in our sixth and seventh grade resident enrollment at Oakview,” Weldon said. “Our intent was accomplished in balancing those numbers a little bit better.”
Weldon also added that redistricting is generally a fairly regular thing for districts to do in order to balance student numbers from building to building.
Total enrollment at Lake Orion High School was 2,139; Learning Options has 79 students enrolled and there are 73 students enrolled at the Pine Tree Center.
Total district enrollment was 6,612 students, 118 students less than last year’s enrollment of 6,730 students.
Out of the total district enrollment, 590 are school of choice students which is nearly 10% of resident enrollment. The district’s school of choice enrollment target is currently 10% per building.
“School of choice projections and acceptance is a delicate balance every year. We make decisions based on trends and anticipation but fluidity is a very real thing that can impact these percentages with just one or two students making a big impact on that,” said Weldon. “While we want to maximize and get as close to that 10% as we can, per building, concerns were expressed last year because we had a couple of buildings that were above the 10% mark – Carpenter and Blanche Sims. Sims last year was at 11.21% and Carpenter had a building percentage of 14.38. So, this year, this past spring, we accepted a much lower number of school of choice students.”
In the spring, LOCS projected its fall enrollment numbers at to 6,599 students, 13 students less than the actual final count on Oct. 4.
Class sizes at the elementary level are at or below the district’s target size with a few exceptions.
Fourth grade at Paint Creek Elementary and Orion Oaks Elementary are both just above the targeted class size of 26 students per class, while Carpenter’s first and third grade classes are also just above the 25 and 26 student targets.
Webber Elementary is a bit tougher with four out of the seven grade levels above the targeted class size and two (first and third grades) just above contract max, which is consistent with last year’s numbers, said Weldon.
While building capacity at the elementary and high school level floats between the 80-90% range, middle school capacity is still an area of concern for some members of the board with all three middle schools sitting in the 50% range with Oakview at 57.78%, Scripps at 52.16% and Waldon at 58.44%.
“We have had and continue to have the discussions and the awareness about this but we also continue to have a continued commitment to our middle school programming and team concept,” Weldon said. “We’re committed to that because we feel it does have a significant impact and benefit to our student population at that level.”
Board Treasurer Jake Singer, who has been vocal about his concerns with building capacity at the middle school level, spoke to reiterate his concerns from previous enrollment presentations.
“Rick (Arnett, previous Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources) did give us a number several years ago – what is the budget cost of running the team teaching?” Singer said. “In my mind there are two ways that that could be calculated and I would request to get that number.”
Singer added that two ways to remedy the situation would be to switch to the regular junior high model, or to potentially run less teams.
With roughly 500 students in each grade at the middle level, Singer asked what changes could be made.
“When we started the team teaching concept, most of the years we had over 600 middle schoolers,” Singer said. “So, we had, typically, 100 more kids to a team. And that was getting your class sizes in those core classes of 25. Now when we only have teams that have 75, 80 kids on them; that’s a question for our district: is that how we want to spend our money, or if we were to reduce the number of teams at the middle level in some way or do something else. Are there options?”
According to Weldon, the team concept does have additional costs that are difficult to quantify like student connection and student well-being, but he added that those are discussions he and the rest of LOCS administration are having.
Board Secretary Susan Flaherty agreed with Singer, stating she has been on the board for three years now and that this portion of the enrollment presentation is always one they spend a lot of time on. She said she would like to see the district rework the numbers at some point to see if there is anything they could do differently.
Weldon noted that the numbers currently do not support a redistricting, therefore he is not suggesting they do that as of right now.
LOCS has also consistently had an “aging out” issue over the past several years with the number of incoming Kindergarten and Developmental Kindergarten students being less than the number of graduating seniors.
This year, there are 147 fewer incoming Kindergarten and DK students than outgoing seniors. However, the total enrollment change among Kindergarten through 11th grade was a net positive of 23 students, for a total enrollment change of 124 fewer students than last year, according to district documents.
One reason for this is a lower number of county births, which saw a decline starting in 2016 until about 2021.
Spring count day is set for Feb. 14 of next year.