Yelm Community Schools (YCS) announced a preliminary four-day count of 5,491 students across the district to begin the 2024-25 school year during its Thursday, Sept. 12, Board of Directors meeting.
The amount is 19 students fewer than its budgeted total of 5,510 and 15 fewer than its full-time equivalent total of 5,506 from 2023-24. The district noted that the full-time equivalent enrollment jumped 49 students from September to October last year and that a rise can be expected this fall.
One of the caveats of the four-day count is that the district has to count all of its students on the fourth day of the school year, which was Monday, Sept. 9, and if a student wasn’t in attendance on one of the first four days, they are not counted. YCS Chief of Finance & Operations Jennifer Carrougher said many students are still registering and showing up to school every day.
“We have families that may have been on vacation or extended vacation and kids are still registering,” she said. “We will go up quite a bit. We’re not funded based on our actual [amount]; we’re funded based on the average throughout the whole year. We budgeted really well to be able to monitor our fund balance from the beginning of the year. If we budget too high, then we have an inflated fund balance for the first four months.”
The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) funds the district based on its projection for the first four months of the year and does not adjust its pay structure until January. Carrougher said if the district budgets too few students compared with the actual count, then it encounters cash flow issues at the beginning of the year.
While student enrollment numbers are considered close to expected, class sizes are larger than normal given the district’s budget cuts. Superintendent Chris Woods announced the following student averages at the elementary level:
Kindergarten: 21.93 students
First grade: 22.06 students
Second grade: 23.04 students
Third grade: 26.48 students
Fourth grade: 27.41 students
Fifth grade: 27.05 students
Woods said the secondary class sizes are high as well, with some classrooms fitting more than 35 students. He added that some schools had lower than expected numbers, particularly in kindergarten, whereas others, such as Southworth Elementary, are full across the board.
“So at Fort Stevens and at Mill Pond, we ended up collapsing and eliminating one section of kindergarten, and then we’re adding that staff in a different place within the same building,” Woods said.
Due to the larger class sizes, as well as several new housing units being built near the schools, Woods said the district will begin looking at shifting boundaries in the next year, an idea that drew a round of applause from community members and staff in the audience at the board meeting.
“People are clapping, but that is a huge undertaking. It is probably a year-long process, and people feel very passionate about their schools,” he said. “We will probably have to start that process this school year.”
Woods said after the meeting that the process would involve adjusting all of the boundaries for each school so that the number of students at each building is equitable.
“It takes a lot of time and a lot of study. You have to look at specific neighborhoods, housing developments and apartments, and then you’ve got to work with the city planner and the county. You try to get very accurate projections moving forward in enrollment,” he said. “When you’re redrawing those boundaries, you’re doing it with the future in mind. You typically do it with a lot of involvement. You have community members that are part of that committee, a board and staff that run through that process.”
Woods added that the boundary adjustment would likely occur regardless of the result of a future educational programs and operations levy, which would be voted upon in February with the board’s approval. The process would also impact bus routes and what schools students would attend on a year-to-year basis.
“We’ve got some buildings like Southworth that are full across the board, and they didn’t even take any transfers. Regardless of the outcome of the levy, we may still have to redo the boundaries,” Woods said. “Let’s say I was in third grade, and next year I’m going to be in fourth grade, but the boundaries change and I’m now going to a different school. Then a district has to decide if they are going to grandfather me in and let me finish where I was, or are they going to make a move? Along with that is transportation. Let’s say I’m now at Mill Pond instead of Fort Stevens. Maybe they grandfather me in, but I’ve got to provide my own transportation to get there.”
