Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE – Enrollment in SAD 1 schools is up slightly according to Superintendent Gehrig Johnson.
At the Sept. 17 board meeting, Johnson told directors that as of Sept. 8, there were 2,079 students attending SAD 1 schools. “Basically this is a snapshot of the enrollment on Sept. 8, but it changes every day,” said Johnson. “There’s no two days where the enrollment would be the same in a school district. On that particular day, we had 2,079 students enrolled; last year we had 2,070 students enrolled, so we’re up nine students.
“That’s good news for us,” he said, “because we’ve been in a slow, steady decline for a number of years. We’re hoping this maybe will point to stability in our district enrollment.”
At the present, there are 639 students enrolled at Presque Isle High School, 462 at the Presque Isle Middle School, 216 at Mapleton Elementary School, 367 at Pine Street Elementary School, 327 at Zippel Elementary School, and 68 at the Learning Center.
There are also 100 children enrolled in the district’s pre-kindergarten program.
“The elementary enrollment is down, which is not surprising,” said Johnson. “We tend to lose kids at the lower grades; we are down 19 students districtwide from kindergarten to grade 5 from last year. At the middle school, we are up 19 students; while at the high school we’re up nine students.
“A lot of it has to do with shifts – in-migration and out-migration of the district,” he said. “This year we have a net in-migration to the middle school … same with the high school. The senior class last year that graduated was 139, and the eighth-grade class that came in as freshmen is 167.”
Overall, enrollment has been declining slightly over the last several years.
In 1995, 2,291 students were enrolled in the district; 2,230 in 2000; and 2,093 in 2005.
“For the last decade and beyond,” Johnson said, “we’ve been in a steady decline of about 1 percent a year. That’s been the pattern for all of Aroostook County, not just Presque Isle.”
Enrollment data will again be collected Oct. 1.
Directors also at the meeting authorized the city of Presque Isle to conduct a referendum on the consolidation plan to combine the school systems of SAD 1, SAD 32 and Nashville Plantation.
A public hearing will be held Tuesday, Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. in the PIHS cafeteria, while SAD 32’s public hearing will be held Tuesday, Oct. 21 in the Ashland High School cafeteria. The referendum vote will be held on Election Day, Nov. 4.
“At the public hearings, we will explain the consolidation document that has been put together, solicit comments and take questions,” said Johnson.
Johnson said if any community votes the referendum down, the two school districts will stay as they are now and not be forced to consolidate.
Also at the September meeting, directors:
• Hired Tracy Fox as the new seventh-grade science teacher at Presque Isle Middle School.
“She comes to us from Mars Hill where she was teaching fifth and sixth grade,” said Johnson.
• Accepted the resignation of Norma Nadeau, a first-grade teacher at Mapleton Elementary School. Nadeau’s last day was Sept. 19, and Johnson said the position will be filled with a long-term substitute until the end of the school year.
The next SAD 1 board meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15 at Mapleton Elementary School.
