Enrollment is down over last year at the Eastern Pulaski School Corporation. Superintendent Dan Foster says the fall student count figure is now official.
“We are down 13 students from the ADM of last year. Not nearly as bad as it could be, but that’s still about $68,000 to our revenue side that we won’t be seeing this year. The positive spin on that is we have 175 students who have transferred in to Eastern Pulaski Schools, so certainly without those kids we’d be in a great deal of hurt and a lot more financial strain,” Foster said.
He added demographics and live births are big factors in the population decline.
“Parents have lived here for 35 years. They still live in the same house that they raised three kids in. But now those three kids are out of school , and they’re not necessarily coming back. and then finding housing and raising three children of their own. So it’s kind of that trend in these smaller, rural areas.]
Foster adds rural areas have quite a few perceived drawbacks for younger people.
{10-14-16 – EP Enrollment 3} Q…or four kids. :22
[It’s a great community, and we have a couple great factories with Galfab and Galbreath, and of course BraunAbility. We’ve got some great things, but there’s not a lot of housing opportunities for our young folks. There’s not a lot of entertainment-type things for our young folks, so it’s hard to pull them back in and get them here in the community where they’re going to raise their two or three or four kids.]
Foster says the reduction in funding due to enrollment will require cuts of a surgical nature to overcome, as the enrollment dip spans the spectrum from kindergarten through 12th grade.
