Richfield School District Enrollment Surges as Staff Numbers Drop

There are now more students attending Richfield Public Schools than any year since 2001. Enrollment has increased by eight percent over the past two years, reversing a nearly decade-long downward trend, district officials told the school board at its Monday meeting at Richfield Middle School.

There are now 170 more students enrolled than there were in the 2010-11 school year, but the additional state funds that come with an enrollment hike were not enough to stave off budget cuts, and the district’s teaching staff was reduced by four full-time positions. (The district now employs 587 full-time equivalent staff positions.)

Michael Schwartz, the district’s business manager, credited the increase in students to the addition of the STEM magnate school and the split of the K-5 curricular set-up into a K-2 and 3-5 model.

“We got positive reactions to that,” he said.

The district also noticed a decreased enrollment in local private schools, and Schwartz said it was possible that with a “tanking economy,” some families were moving their children into the public education system to save money.

Schwartz, other district officials and school board members emphasized that an enrollment increase is beneficial to the district. Most of the district’s enrollment gains were among elementary students, and for the first time ever, there are more students in kindergarten, first and second grade students than there are in high schoolers—a striking statistic.

Superintendent Bob Slotterback said that the district has made all the cuts it can to support staff and non-essential services, and future cuts will continue to come from the teaching force.

“We’re down almost 50 cleaners since the 1980s,” he said, “and we really don’t have that much less square footage that we’re cleaning.”

Schwartz said that schools are getting more expensive to run, but are not getting increased funds.

“For three years in a row, we didn’t get any increase in state funding,” he said.