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Thursday Thoughts
October 23, 2008
Carlton Rider, Principal |
A couple
of weeks ago all schools in the state of
Ohio, public as well as private, were
required to submit to the Ohio Department of
Education what is called their ADM counts or
Average Daily Membership Count. Auxiliary
Services funding is dependant on the number
of students we have attend our school each
year and the count is taken in October to
determine that number of students.
Textbooks, technology equipment, student
workbooks and related learning materials
along with personnel that come through our
local public school such as our nurse,
auxiliary services clerk, Title 1, and
speech teachers are all paid through these
funds To say that the present state of our
economy has had an impact on our present
enrollment might be an understatement. Our
enrollment dropped from 467 during the
2007/2008 school year to 429 this current
school year, a drop of 38 students. Among
some of the reasons given for parents not
registering their children to return to St.
Mary’s were tuition costs, relocations, home
school, and dissatisfaction with the school
in general.
Last year’s enrollment of 467 students was
up from 462 the previous school year, which
was up from 430 during the 2005/2006 school
year. Between 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 we
experienced moderate growth, especially in
our seventh and eighth grade classes. The
present Freshman class at Fisher Catholic
had 74 students during the 2005/2006 school
year (their sixth grade year), 80 students
during their seventh grade year in
2006/2007, and 78 students their eighth
grade year during the 2007/2008 school year.
Every once in a while we have large classes
come through and this year’s Freshman class
was exceptionally large by our standards.
Parish statistics also point to reasons for
a decline in student population. During the
time between the year 2000 and 2007, St.
Mary parish has experienced a decline from a
high of 84 baptisms in 2002 to 58 in the
year 2007. There has been a steady decline
in baptisms since 2004. The October count (a
count taken each October of the number of
parishioners attending Mass) has steadily
declined from 1,765 in 2001 to 1,266 in
2007. That number is expected to continue to
decline with this year’s count.
I decided to see if there were any other
years in which we experienced a drop similar
to this and in going back over attendance
records for the past 70 years I could not
find a year in which we experienced such a
one year drop. In the weeks to come, I will
be sharing with you what the consequences of
such a drop could have on our school if we
continue to experience a decline in student
population in the next few years. As you
will see, some of what may be contributing
to a future decline in student population
may be out of our control, especially if it
is related to a change in demographics in
our area, the declining industrial base and
a heavy reliance on retail businesses which
provide minimum salary opportunities in our
community as opposed to technology-related
industries. The key, I believe, to planning
for the continuation of Catholic education
in a changing world is to recognize the
signs of change and to be pro-active in
addressing these changes.
Previous Messages:
October 16, 2008
October 9, 2008
October 2, 2008
September 25, 2008
September 18, 2008
September 11, 2008
September 4, 2008
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