The Londonderry School Board received an update regarding the incoming kindergarten class during its May 7 meeting.
Superintendent, Dan Black, said as of the end of last month “we look to have another small incoming Kindergarten class for the next school year.”
“Right now, we have 152 Kindergarten students officially registered, and another 24 that have started but not completed the process,” he said.
It was explained by Black that for the last few years, with their registration system being centralized they generally “have not seen a huge change in enrollment over the summer that we may have seen more 5 to 10 years ago.”
Black noted that if the numbers hold where they are right now, then they would have “back to back small classes.”
“If next year’s incoming Kindergarten class holds to this pattern, then we would only expect to get about 15 more enrolled students over the summer,” Black wrote in a memo. “That means our highest current projection for incoming Kindergarten would be 191 students for 2024-25.”
One of the things that Black noted is that the plan is to monitor the enrollment every two weeks “moving forward to see if there are any major changes.”
“This incoming small class leaves us with a lot of questions why they are small again and many implications for how to manage and plan for smaller enrollment with two classes back-to-back moving forward (at least two years of small classes),” Black wrote in a memo.
He referred to the NESDEC Enrollment Study, completed in the fall that “they make their projections based on actual births to Londonderry (and the general year to year increase of families moving in above the number of births).”
“They projected 250 incoming Kindergarten students for the 2024-25 school year,” Black wrote in a memo.
“We surmise there are several reasons we are seeing smaller enrollment [than] the prior decade,” Black wrote in a memo.
He said one of the reasons they think is because of the “lack of turnover in housing from one generation to the next in Londonderry.”
He pointed to a “challenging housing market with prices and interest rates and overall limited stock in Londonderry,” as one of the reasons.
Black also pointed to a chart that showed for a decade that they generally “had more students show up every year above the birth rate 5 years earlier,” noting that last year they had a decrease.
“Looking at this pattern and knowing the lack of generational turnover and a tight housing market, leads me to conclude currently that part of the smaller numbers is less over all move in families than we have seen in the past,” Black wrote in a memo.
Black also pointed to the fact that the majority of surrounding communities have full day kindergarten, saying that “Private options for full day Kindergarten exist as well.”
“We have communicated very clearly for more than two years that we are out of space at Moose Hill with current programming,” Black wrote in a memo.
He also said they “need to better plan for the potential of smaller classes in general for Moose Hill if this pattern continues.”
“We also need to analyze space needs and future space needs as these two small classes back to make move through our school system,” Black wrote in a memo. “We also need to analyze our overall staffing levels and future staffing needs as these two small classes back- to-back move through the system.”
Black also noted that they will be “keeping an eye on incoming first graders that have not been enrolled at Moose Hill in Kindergarten.”
“In prior years, we tended to get about 40 to 45 students join us in 1st grade,” Black wrote in a memo. “Right now, we are only seeing 11 officially registered and only 3 more that have started but not completed. Looking at these numbers leads me to conclude right now that the normal “move in” families we have seen historically are not happening along with some percentage of families choosing charter, private and home school options as well.”