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There has not been an increase in students at Park City schools this year
Coming into this year’s school year, rumors were rampant about the number of new kids coming to Park City. The narrative was that people were fleeing their Coronavirus-infused hellholes to come to idyllic Park City – and they were bringing their kids with them.
At one point I heard there were going to be 700 additional students in our district. I could have believed it. The only problem is that it wasn’t true. Maybe the parents came here for the summer and are planning to stay for the winter, but it looks like they left the kids home with their nannies.
On Thursday, during Leslie Thatcher‘s Local News Hour on KPCW, Ms. Thatcher asked Park City School District Business Administrator Todd Hauber about the number of students the district is seeing so far. Mr. Hauber replied that official numbers would come out in October, but the district did an unofficial headcount (on Tuesday) like they do every year. According to Mr. Hauber, “There were around 3600 in-person students and around 835 online learners” as part of the count. He noted that the total is between 4400-4500 students and is usually about 95% to 96% of the number of students that are presented as part of the official count in October. He said the numbers are in line with what they were expecting.
I’ll point out that last year‘s official Park City enrollment was 4,757. If the headcount turns out to be 95% of the final numbers, our student population this year will be around 4,735 — down a bit from last year. That would be similar to last year, where we saw a 0.5% decrease in students.
In this Coronavirus-crazed world who know what could eventually happen with the numbers, but as of today, it appears the fears of our schools being jammed due to new students were unfounded.
Parkrag
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Classrooms are still full. Students can’t be not distanced six feet apart. Teachers have resigned.
I agree that some teachers have resigned and 6 feet space is impossible in almost every case that I have seen. That said, at a macro level there are not more students in the district. If you take out remote-learners, the number of students in-person (as of Tuesday) was down 23% versus last year.
My third grader has 22 kids in his class. That is down about 2-3 students. My first grader has 11 and he says no more than 9 have ever shown up. That’s a crazy small class size and borders on what you may get at a private school in town.
I’m not making a broader political statement. There is enough of that going around on all sides. I’m just reporting that the narrative around more kids in Park City schools (collectively) is not true.
That’s odd, because at Parley’s we have 67 more or something. Had to add 2 extra classes because both 4th and 5th grade were up over 30 kids/class.
As an aside, the kids are doing awesome with masks and social distancing. Teachers (at least at Parley’s) are pretty happy with how things are going. How do I know? Sarah’s teaching 5th grade!
Congrats on Sarah teaching 5th grade! She would be an awesome teacher to have, especially with her science background.
On the numbers, yeah, from everything I heard I thought they would be way up. That’s why Todd Hauber’s comments surprised me so much. I don’t doubt him. He knows what he is doing.
I wonder if it could be a shift between schools. It will be really interesting in October to compare the final numbers in October 2020 versus last year.
Stay safe.
Given the insane real estate market that is double the volume of sales on a weekly basis than a year ago, week after week, something is certainly going on. I wonder if a lot of the people have not officially arrived yet, or they have and their kids are online learning in their old school districts?
Good question. I have wondered that too. I have often thought that there has to be a limited number of people with kids, who are willing to move their kids, that their job allows them to move, want to move here, and also have $1- $2 million for real-estate. So, maybe people without children are moving this way.
Also, I have heard that the number of offers is outpacing sales. People seem to be making an offer because they don’t want to miss out but then move on to put additional offers on other houses. Then they back out. I don’t have access to actual sales data, so I don’t know, but I have heard that anecdotally a few times.
How many families have elected to home school, or enroll in other on-line academies outside the district? It would be interesting to look at number of students that were enrolled last year but are not enrolled this year. Four houses surrounding me just turned over. Went from 1 college age child to 12 school age children. One market dynamic I’m seeing in my business is empty nesters taking advantage of high market values selling to a much younger demographic. Business is vibrant in market <$1M.
This information is in the article: “According to Mr. Hauber, “There were around 3600 in-person students and around 835 online learners” as part of the count.”
That’s in line (the total of both online and in person) with what we had last year.
Mr. Hauber’s numbers only include students registered in the district. No way for them to pick up families who pursued other options and did not register. Looking at student enrolled last year, but not this year could help fill that gap.
https://www.abc4.com/news/academics-amid-the-pandemic/failing-our-teachers-study-ranks-utah-dead-last-in-protecting-educators-from-the-coronavirus/
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