School District 1 enrollment gap shrinking

During an enrollment report, Yuma School District 1 chief financial officer Kerry Jones reported that numbers are down by 255 as of the 80th day of school.

“I think declining enrollment is not positive, but looking since the start of the year where we started out down 339 students and that number has been decreasing ... percentage-wise, it's shrinking,” he said Monday at the district board meeting.

Jones added that the number of migrant students in the district has gone up by 13 students from this time last year.

“A lot of the decline is in fifth, sixth and seventh grade,” he explained but commented that the number of kindergartners enrolled in the district has increased significantly.

During the monthly budget report, Jones said that compared with last year at this point in time, the district has decreased expenditures by over $3,531,000.

With a little over 41 percent of the school year completed, said Jones, the district is on track to come in under its budget for the year.

“We are well positioned to be able to absorb (cuts) without additional furlough days or layoffs this year,” said Jones. “We are trying to prepare ourselves for next year so that if there is a 10 percent budget cut, we will be in a position where we can do that without severe budget cuts.”

Superintendent Darwin Stiffler added that a bittersweet contributing factor to why they are well positioned for midyear cuts is because classes have grown in size.

In his report, Duane Sheppard, associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction, said that Galileo test average scores are above target.

Board member Gary Wright showed some concerns about specific scores that were below average and wanted to know what interventions were going to be in place to fix them.

Stiffler gave an example of one academic intervention that will be taking place in January, when 865 laptop computers will be distributed throughout the district in grades 2-6 and in middle school math courses to provide further assistance.

There will be five computers per classroom for reading and math standards-based work, Stiffler reported.

“It is true, we are concerned ... Some of the middle school scores are definitely not where we want them to be ... Different groups of people are looking at and evaluating that data,” he explained, noting that the Galileo tests are helpful in detecting problems and allowing time for intervention before the AIMS test.

Sheppard added that a large percentage of the moderate or at-risk students have moved up to be either “meeting” or “exceeding” the standards.

In regards to eighth-grade retention, Wright proposed a plan to recognize students at eighth-grade graduations who excel on the AIMS test.

“The award is to put some relevance and purpose into the AIMS test,” said Wright as he explained his proposal.

Stiffler responded that unfortunately, in the past, the district does not receive the AIMS test scores for the year until the day after school ends.

At the close of the meeting, Tom Tyree, Yuma County school superintendent recognized the service of Wright, who has served on the board for four years, and president Greg Wilkinson, who has served for eight years.

Tyree presented each with a plaque for his contributions to the district.

He also administered the oath of office to new board members Karen Griffin and Karl Koenig, who will start their terms at their first school board meeting in January.

Sarah Womer can be reached at swomer@yumasun.com or 539-6858.