Mesa Public Schools has seen a decline in enrollment for the year, but it is hanging on to more students through the years, according to a recent district report.
The district’s governing board were given a presentation on enrollment analysis by senior research analyst Dr. Kristi Glassmeyer and associate superintendent Dr. Matthew Strom during its Feb. 11 meeting.
The presentation revealed the district’s overall enrollment has decreased by 1,616 students between the 2023-24 school year, which had 55,276 students, and the 2024-25 school year, with 53,660 students.
At the same time, the year-over-year K-12 enrollment retention, measured as the percentage of students enrolled in mid-May of the prior school year to Day 15 of the following school year, has increase. The retention rate went from 86.92% in the 2021-22 school year to the 2022-23 school year, to 90.61% from 2022-23 to 2023-24, and 90.84% from 2023-24 to the 2024-25 school year.
The presentation included findings on student stability rates, which are measured by the number of students continuously enrolled in the district, including those who came in and out of the district. Separated by level of schooling, the stability rates are 93.1% for K-6, 93.5% for junior high, 92.1% for high school, 95.9% for choice schools, and 63.9% for success schools.
Strom said student stability is important for students and learning outcomes.
“When kids have mobility issues and are moving from school to school, the sequencing of the structure of those learning experiences is different at every school,” Strom said. “It’s very important that those kids get a structured learning experience because one skill begets another. That’s why stability matters.”
Board member Lacy Halm Chaffee asked if declining enrollment may result in budget or staff reductions, and if it would require changing the staffing model the district uses.
The district is already facing budget cuts and layoffs for the next year due to declining enrollment.
“Based on these trends that we review now and the information from earlier tonight, how likely is it that we’re going to need to move from an instructional time model to a FTSE model?” Chalm asked.
Staffing models define how teachers and staff are allocated to schools based on a number of factors such as enrollment. MPS uses an instructional time model, which outlines how learning time is structured during the school day, as well as the lengths of class periods, subject allocations and more.
A full-time student equivalent, or FTSE, model allocates staff based on how many classes a student takes with a school rather than campus student counts. Strom wrote in an email to describe in that model if 100 students were in a FTSE model of 25 students to one teacher and 50 of those 100 students were full-time, then it would result in a FTSE count of 75, which would result in three teacher contracts being given out.
Strom said if the declining enrollment can’t be reversed, it’s likely officials will have to change the district’s model.
“If we can’t capture the loss in ADM (average daily membership), I would put it right now at a 70% chance we’ll be back to you in the future explaining that we are likely to move to a FTSE model at least for the 12th grade year in 2026-27,” Strom said. “That’s all an effort to make the budget work, and you guys on the board are voting on an overall expenditure budget.”
MUSD — also known as Mesa Public Schools — is the largest public school district in Arizona and has six high schools, nine junior high schools, 55 elementary schools and 18 choice and success schools.
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