Rising enrollment at the elementary level means Worthington City Schools will reclaim rented space in the Sutter Park building.

Assistant Superintendent Paul Cynkar said Oct. 3 that the official enrollment for pre-kindergarten through grade 12 is 9,567 students. That number is 77 more than last year's total of 9,490 students.

At the elementary level, however, the enrollment growth was 188 students.

"While we haven't reached capacity this year, we are getting closer to capacity in the 11 elementary buildings," Cynkar said. "We've decided to terminate our lease with Helping Hands at Sutter Park so that space will be available if we have an overflow of kindergarten or other classes."

Sutter Park Elementary School students were merged with Liberty Elementary School students in fall 2005 due to declining enrollment at the elementary level. The move was expected to save the district around $888,000 per year, mostly in personnel salaries.

The same year, the district leased 5,250 square feet of the resulting vacant space at Sutter Park to Helping Hands Center, a therapy and education center for children ages 3-6 with developmental disabilities.

Also housed in the Sutter Park building were 11 district preschool classrooms.

"What is fueling the increase at the elementary schools is higher numbers in first grade and kindergarten," Cynkar said. "This year's kindergarten class is the largest class since 1998 at 713.

"We also had a significant leap between kindergarten and first grade: 44 kids," he said.

Cynkar said the enrollment increase is 83 more than what was projected.

Slate Hill Elementary School had the largest increase with 68 more students, bringing the total at the building to 503.

The largest enrollment of all the elementary buildings is at Liberty with 518 students. Cynkar said the school gained 29 students this year.

District diversity also has increased, Cynkar said.

"We are becoming a more diverse community," he said. "We had 327 students who qualified as English as a Second Language students last year, but 361 qualified this year."

Cynkar said enrollment trends can be difficult to predict.

"It is hard to tell if the rising enrollment is a long-term trend," he said. "It looks like younger families were moving into existing houses and that pockets of growth in Bluffsview might have been from developments by M/I Homes and at Granby from Oldstone Crossing. But Slate Hill had the biggest growth."

Middle school enrollment still is declining, Cynkar said.

"Middle schools are down 66 kids, but we thought the decline would be closer to 94 kids," he said. "The high school enrollment is still pretty stable. Worthington Kilbourne is down about 18 students and Thomas Worthington 43 students, but we foresee the enrollment decline on the west side will go into the high school next year."

The high school decline may make staffing changes necessary by 2009, Cynkar said.

"We'll need to make adjustments in staffing at the high school level as the student population goes down," he said.

Cynkar said the districtwide increase of 77 students is 160 more than projected.

"So we do seem to be on a growth curve, which is why we thought it best to terminate the lease with Helping Hands at the end of this school year," he said.

The district keeps a close eye on enrollment, Cynkar said.

"We watch enrollment every day from August to mid-October and then on a weekly basis, taking into account any rumors of properties being in development or neighborhoods turning over houses, so that we can be as accurate with our projections as possible," he said.

"What is fueling the increase at the elementary schools is higher numbers in first grade and kindergarten. This year's kindergarten class is the largest class since 1998 at 713."

--Paul Cynkar