CCP 08-26-2002 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Demographics Advisory Committee Report . respectively. In the past ten years, our School District has seen a rise in the diversity of its student population. Appendix N shows the lO-year trend in this area. Excensus projections indicate that this trend will continue. 12. Ethnic Trends What do trends in birth rates by ethnic group tell us about the change in the future number of students who may need to be served by our public schools? The fertility rate (Minnesota Planning May 2000) for Asian women is almost twice the rate for Caucasian women and for Hispanic women almost three times, according to Minnesota Planning, May 2000. In our School District, we have seen growth in Asian population, from 2,307 in 1990 to 3,746 in 2000, an increase of 62 percent. Hispanic population has also increased by 78 per cent during this period, an increase of 500 people. These families will have an impact in the next ten years as their older children become our secondary students, and their younger children help keep our Kindergarten counts level. Strategies for Monitoring Demographic Trends and Impacting Enrollment . 13 . Influencing Enrollment What can our School District do to influence enrollment? In order to be knowledgeable about future trends, the district needs to adopt strategies that will yield accurate projections of student populations. This will result in proper staffing levels, and in the longer term, fully used facilities. This will also give us the opportunity to influence demographic trends in our district (i.e. taking or supporting actions that attract more people or families of child bearing age into our district.) 14. Improved Enrollment Projections How can our School District do to more accurately predict student enrollment? Better projections hinge on two different activities: getting good data and setting up a process that keeps this current, and regularly reviewing the projection process and algorithms that it uses. These can be accomplished with the following: Develop a system for aggressively tracking and reporting enrollment, housing trends and migration. . School staff must be trained to obtain data on all students' families, and to report it in a timely fashion to the district census office. . Work with the county, city and real estate agents to obtain housing transactions, and then to follow up on these changes. . Develop a regular census strategy so that all homes in the district are contacted on a regular basis. Define areas that may be more likely to have children move in, and monitor them more closely. . Continually update enrollment assumptions and projections. . Work with consultants, such as Excensus to ensure that new trends and information are considered as they become available . Review the data acquisition processes each year to evaluate their effectiveness. May 1,2002 11