School enrollment increases

The Sisters School Board Monday received an updated enrollment count for the current school year showing an overall increase of 6.4 percent compared with the start of school a year ago.

The new total for all three schools is 1,370, up 83 students from last year. The total is slightly smaller than was reported a week ago (see The Nugget, Page One, Sept. 21) because it now includes most of the “leaves,” students who have moved elsewhere but whose paperwork is not received until two weeks or more after school starts. But the net increase is still larger than previously reported because the district’s earlier tally sheet erroneously inflated last year’s high school enrollment by 20.

The new totals by school (as of last Friday) are: elementary school, 479, up 28 (including kindergarten); middle school, 323, up 20; high school, 568, up 35.

The number of transfers from other districts remains about the same as reported earlier, a total 93, including 78 from Redmond. The board discussed briefly whether Sisters should expect a lessening of the inflow from Redmond in the next year or so.

Redmond school officials are unhappy about the cost of transfers to their district in terms of state support.

Sisters Superintendent Ted Thonstad said he doesn’t know if or when Redmond might change the transfer policy it liberalized several years ago to relieve some of the district’s overcrowding. But he said, “I don’t see this door closing immediately.”

Thonstad also gave the board a “work sheet” projecting that Sisters might gain an additional $203,000 in state support this year because of increased enrollment from all sources, not just transfers. For state purposes, a complex formula will convert Sisters’ enrollment to a total of 40.6 “weighted average daily membership” (ADM), which should bring in $203,000 based on a conservative estimate of $5,000 per ADM.