Oct. 16, 2013
By Tara Cavanaugh
Updated enrollment numbers show that the district has lost a total of 224 students since the last school year.
The majority of those students, a total of 134, were lost at the high school level. And most of those students, 93 of them, opted instead to attend one of the WISD high school programs.
The district is a partner with WISD and its specialized high school programs. WISD offers the Early College Alliance (ECA), Widening Advancement for Youth (WAY) and the Washtenaw International High School international baccalaureate program (WiHi).
The district’s partnership includes working with WISD to advertise the programs to students, allowing students to participate in AAPS graduation ceremonies and senior class activities, and providing transcripts and Michigan Merit Curriculum credit.
When an AAPS student decides to participate in the ECA, WAY or WiHi programs, his or her per-pupil funding is transferred from the district to those programs.
The district’s contract with WISD regarding these programs finishes on Dec. 1, and it is considering whether or not to renew.
“We’re not wanting to withhold options from our students,” said Jane Landefeld, the AAPS director of student accounting and research. “But now we are thinking of offering some of those options in our district.”
The list below shows student enrollment by school and the increase or decrease from last year.
The loss from Northside (29) and Angell (5) may be from changes in University of Michigan north campus housing, Landefeld said. U-M students and families appear to be moving into the apartments on Green Road or in the King Elementary area. “This is adding to King’s higher enrollment,” she added.
Bryant and Northside were schools with all-day kindergarten before the district offered it at all schools. Now that all schools have all-day kindergarten, schools tend to attract kindergarten students from their own neighborhoods.
Landefeld also pointed out that it is typical for schools’ enrollments to fluctuate. For example, Clague had the largest enrollment of the middle schools two years ago, Tappan had the largest enrollment last year, and Slauson has the largest this year.
2013 Enrollment Numbers, (+/- change from last year listed in parenthesis)
- Abbot: 318, (+22)
- Allen: 370, (-7)
- Angell: 289, (-5)
- Bach: 355, (-36)
- Bryant: 328, (-24)
- Burns Park: 414, (+1)
- Carpenter: 397, (+11)
- Dicken: 364, (-1)
- Eberwhite: 344, (-5)
- Haisley: 399, (-20)
- King: 445, (-1)
- Lakewood: 354, (+22)
- Lawton: 433, (-20)
- Logan: 351, (+17)
- Mitchell: 276, (-3)
- Northside: 189, (-29)
- Pattengill: 340, (+10)
- Pittsfield: 240, (-6)
- Thurston: 428, (+4)
- Wines: 441, (+7)
- Total Elementary Loss: -63
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Ann Arbor Open: 513, (+1)
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- Clague: 710, (-29)
- Forsythe: 684, (+29)
- Scarlett: 490, (-15)
- Slauson: 769, (+7)
- Tappan: 737, (-20)
- Total Middle School Loss: -27
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- A2 Tech: 115, (-2)
- Huron: 1515, (-96)
- Pioneer: 1644, (-7)
- Community: 487, (+14)
- Clemente: 80, (-6)
- Skyline: 1464, (-37)
- Total High School Loss: -134
All comments will be approved and moderated. Please see the new AAPS News Commenting Guidelines.
With our district cutting bus service, increasing class size, decreasing the number of reading specialist and counselors in district and unnecessary NWA testing it’s no wonder that those who can leave do. Our School Board seem to be sacrificing some of the things that gives our school district such high quality in the name of profit.
I hope the school district will reflect on the fact that CHS is the only high school with an increased number of students. Obviously a lot of students and parents believe CHS is a better educational choice than the traditional high schools.
These numbers are interesting but would be easier to interpret if they were also presented with percentages (i.e. what percent loss or gain did each school experience).
Any idea why Bach Elementary school lost significantly more students than any other elementary school-including Northside? This was not mentioned at all in the article.
Similar thoughts: increased class size, continued budget cuts, cuts to high school busing (which really hurts families who can’t afford or don’t want to purchase a car for their child). I agree with Jamila: we need some changes on the school board, starting with the President.
My daughter went to Skyline last year and is in the ECA program this year. BEST decision we ever made. I really hope they find a way to continue the programs- but if they think they can give these kids the same opportunity within the school district- they are wrong. Maybe they should really look at WHY kids are leaving.
The entire “loss” construct as it pertains to “one of the WISD high school programs” is profoundly misleading. All of these programs are part of AAPS when an AAPS district student is concerned. Every AAPS student’s achievement, primarily testing scores, are reported as AAPS scores. The fact that these programs include students who were never part of AAPS in Middle School but are now is in fact an added bonus, not a loss. For example, the 9th grade class at WIHI just score tops in the County on the MEAP — the credit goes to AAPS and boosts its numbers. The problem goes deeper than not understanding the numbers or to whom they are credited. It has also to do with AAPS not attending monthly Board meetings for the consortium that runs these “WISD high school programs.” The latest not attended was Oct 9, 2013, in which student allotments were discussed in detail – i.e., planning for losses and gains in student enrollment. Not attended. Not understood. Not acceptable.