Student attendance is up in the DeKalb County School System after the first ten days of school compared to the same time period last year.
Clay Farler, Attendance Supervisor, says more than three thousand students are currently enrolled system wide, an increase of from fifty to one hundred students over last year. “All the schools have more students at this point in the year than they did last year. We had a large kindergarten class to register this year and also in pre-kindergarten we’ve had more qualifying pre-k applicants this year that registered on the first day of school than we have ever had so we’re full in those rooms. Of course we have four pre-k classrooms at Smithville Elementary School and each of those (classrooms) has twenty students. We have one pre-k classroom at DeKalb West School and that room also has twenty students. We have one hundred pre-k students just in our regular program.”
“At the high school at the present time, we have approximately 836 students, which is quite a bit above what we were at this time last year. We had 815 students on the tenth day of school last year.”
“At DeKalb Middle School, we’re also up. We’re up more there than at any other school and part of this has to do with the size of the grades going from school to school. At a school you might have a smaller number in a grade leaving that school and a larger number in a grade coming into that school. This year at the Middle School we’re showing 544 students. Last year, on the tenth day there were 509 students.”
“We’re up a little at Northside Elementary. We have a very large fourth grade at Northside and overall right now they’re at 607 students, which is about eleven more than they had at this time last year. They had 596 last year.”
“At Smithville Elementary School we’re up quite a bit. Like I said, we had a large kindergarten class to enroll and we’re at approximately 613 there now, although that’s probably a little bit higher than the actual final number will be there. But even at that, it’s about thirty more than last year at this time.”
“At DeKalb West School, we’re up a few students there. We’ve been growing at DeKalb West School for the last couple of years. Last year at the West School, they were up quite a bit from the previous years. This year we’re up again by about ten or twelve students there. They’ve got somewhere between 430 and 440 students.”
“Overall we have over three thousand students and last year at this time we were showing 2942. The year before that there were 2992. Now we’re over three thousand. Probably around 3,040. So we’re quite a bit over last year and the year prior to that.”