School Enrollment Up

School enrollment numbers are up compared to this time last year
Attendance Supervisor Clay Farler, during Thursday night’s school board meeting, said that county wide, the enrollment is currently 3,055 and could be as many as 3100 once all the pre-k students are counted. DeKalb County High School’s enrollment is currently at 869 where the 12th grade is at 201 students, higher than in the past for the senior class at this point in the school year. “There were only 847 students at DCHS on the fifth day of school last year. There’s 869 now and we pretty much have accounted for the no shows except for two or three. It’s a little larger number, especially at the high school,” said Farler.
“Mr (Danny) Parkerson’s school (DeKalb West) is about the same as last year. I think he’s got 435 students at the moment but that doesn’t include all the pre-K students there so it’s probably more like 440. The total throughout the county is 3,055. Of course, this will change some by next Thursday, the tenth day of school. That’s the official day everything should be accounted for. All students who haven’t shown up yet, we’ve got to track them down. We only have about 45 or 46 students that we don’t know for sure if they’re coming or not. It’s probably less than that,” said Farler.
“We also don’t have all the pre-K students on the roll yet but that was also the case last year. When they get added to the roll, there will be approximately 40 more students. So it will be pushing 3100 students county-wide. But like I said, there are several no shows that will probably come off that number. Even at that, we’ll probably still be up from last year. There are no grade levels at the present time that have under 200 students. They all have over 200 students except for Pre-K. The smallest class is the senior class or 12th grade. They are at 201 students at the moment. The largest class has been moving through year by year. Now they’re up to the sixth grade. They have 256 students county wide. They’re by far the largest class. Most of the other classes are between 210 students on up to 233 so all the classes from kindergarten to the 12th grade have over 200 students. We usually start at 175 to 180 students in the senior class. The fifth grade county wide is 241 students. The fourth grade is 235 and the third grade is 228,” said Farler.
Farler added that its hard to determine the number of students to anticipate at the start of school each year because there’s a lot of movement of families in and out of the county.
Meanwhile, Farler reported that for the first time in several years, three year old children will be attending pre-kindergarten at DeKalb West School. “There are two pilot classrooms in the county and have been since 2002. Those pilot classrooms can have three and four year old students. But the other three pre-k classes at Smithville Elementary School can only have four year old students. We’re already full in the four year old classes and we’re within one or two students being full at DeKalb West School and Smithville Elementary School mainly because they have three year old students in those classrooms. You cannot have a full 20 students if you have three year olds in the room,” he said.
Meanwhile, Director of Schools Mark Willoughby gave his monthly report on personnel to the school board.
Employment:
Carl Douglas Cantrell, substitute custodian
Rick Cross, special education teacher at Northside Elementary School
Bethany Davis, Transition Coordinator Teacher at DCHS
Michelle McManus, substitute cook
Diana Moon, teacher at DeKalb West School
Chris Moore, special education assistant at DeKalb Middle School
Joshua Odom, teacher at Northside Elementary School
Michael Shaw, teacher at DCHS
Kristen Kell, special education teacher at DeKalb West School
Transfers:
Holly Bain, transferred to Pre-K Educational Assistant at DeKalb West School
Katherine Ballard, full time School Psychologist
Brenda Bandy, transferred from DCHS to DeKalb West School
Shelly Gibson, transferred to Regular Education Assistant at DeKalb West School
Lynn Griffith, transferred from bus assistant to Special Ed Bus Driver
Debbie Knowles, transferred to new Special Ed Assistant position at Northside Elementary School
Daniel Lawson, transferred from sub bus driver to Special Education Bus Driver
James Donnie Lewis, transferred from sub bus driver to full time route
Paula Pinegar, transferred to Library Assistant position at DeKalb Middle School
Teresa Spencer, transferred to Special Education position at DeKalb Middle School
Carol Tallent, transferred to new Special Education Teacher position at Smithville Elementary School Kindergarten
Judy Wiggin, transferred from sub bus assistant to full time.
Resignation:
Jimmy Poss, bus driver