School numbers holding steady

Alexis Barker
NLJ News Editor
 
Weston County School District No. 1’s enrollment in its three schools as of Sept. 8 is in line with last year’s enrollment, despite student population fluctuation between the three buildings. The reports on enrollment were given to the board of trustees by Newcastle High School Principal Bryce Hoffman, Newcastle Middle School Principal Tyler Bartlett and Newcastle Elementary School Principal Brandy Holmes during the board’s Sept. 8 meeting. 
According to reports from building principals, district enrollment is currently sitting at 779 students, up two from last year’s 777. 
For Newcastle High School, Hoffman said that current enrollment is 238. 
“Initially, we were getting lots of kids, but then we had kids that didn’t return,” Hoffman said. “We are four below last year.” 
Also experiencing a decrease in enrollment, Newcastle Elementary School was sitting at 353 students, according to Holmes. 
“I anticipated us being down quite a bit. We sent a big class to the middle school. We are 353 today. This time last year we were at 364,” she said. “So we are down a bit.”
While enrollment may be down, Holmes said, the school has seen new faces joining the district, as well as students returning to the school after an off year. 
In addition to losing a large class to the middle school, she reported that this year’s kindergarten class is only 46 students. 
“It is more than we anticipated last year but still small,” Holmes said. 
The middle school is the only one to experience an increase in enrollment since last year. Bartlett put current enrollment at 188 students. 
“We are actually up a fair amount. At this time last year, we were at 171. We are at 188 now and working on making sure we are not running out of computers,” he said. 
Bartlett noted that some of the students are new to the district, while others left the district last year and chose to come back. In addition to new students, the principal said that three students have left the region.