Putnam Enrollment Shows Slight Decrease

Putnam County’s official school enrollment numbers show a decrease of seven students from last year.

The official count is 11,819 students from Pre-K through 12th grade. Putnam County Schools’ Attendance Supervisor Chris Pierce said enrollment numbers will fluctuate throughout the year.

“As we now have passed the Labor Day holiday our numbers do stabilize somewhat,” Pierce said. “But they do slowly climb all the way until Christmas. That’s usually our high watermark for the year in enrollment numbers, so our highest enrollment numbers always have been in December.”

The school system currently has a student ratio of 18.8 per class. Pierce said the ratio limit is 20.49 and despite the slight decrease in enrollment the school system is full and can only take a handful of kids.

“We’ve got about 19 kids in roughly every class and we can only have about 20,” Pierce said. “They’re pretty full. We have enough room for about any student who’s moving in to have a seat, but not a lot else as far as extra capacity, especially at the elementary school level.

Pierce said the only two schools above 90 percent capacity are Jere Whitson Elementary School and Sycamore Elementary School.

“Those are very small buildings where 20 kids can make a large difference in that,” Pierce said. “All other elementary, middle, and high schools are below 90 percent.”

Pierce said they are still receiving emails for enrollment numbers for non-public schools and homeschooled students that must report. Pierce said they have a tally of 200 homeschoolers but that number is not final and expects that number to increase.