Normal Enrollment, Only Upperman Middle Limited

Putnam County Schools reported a fairly normal enrollment cycle as the start of the school year fast approaches.

Attendance Supervisor Chris Pierce told the School Board Thursday night that as of now, no school in the district is at or above 90 percent capacity. He said capacity will continue to be monitored and is likely to rise as school starts.

“Upperman Middle, we saw that their student-teacher ratio was creeping toward state limits,” Pierce said. “It never went over. It got close in a couple of grade bands. Not for the whole school. So we went ahead and restricted Upperman Middle School.”

Pierce said he has had several calls from parents planning on moving into the Upperman Middle School zone. To preserve space, the registration will be restricted to zoned students and out-of-zone students who attended last year.

“As of the end of school in May, we had an overall enrollment of 11,757 for a difference of 266,” Pierce said. “200 of which were virtual students, so it was kind of a push.”

He said the district is some 500 kids short in pre-k. He said that is normal at this point in the year and expects those spots to fill up. He said the level of change that could come in pre-k numbers makes it difficult to predict how many kids any school will hold.

He said 60 students spread among eight schools participated in the kindergarten lottery, with a 50 percent success rate. He said when school ended in May, the district had 884 kindergarten students. He said 156 fewer are pre-enrolled for the coming school year, but he expects that number to rise to right around last year’s total.

“We’re right in the ballpark of being normal with that,” Pierce said. “We do expect to enroll another 150-200 kids. That’s typical for us, and we’ll probably have to wait until Labor Day into September before we really know what we’ve got as far as a growth number or any decline. So, you know, time will tell on that.”

Some 730 kindergarteners registered early, down 50 students from last year, but Pierce said the 780 from last year was abnormally high.

“Kindergarten, that’s the one we always kind of watch for,” Pierce said. “It started out to look to be a little light, honestly, as we first got into the first few weeks of it. Wound up being very normal, so I think we’re at a good spot with that.”