The 2015-2016 school year is off and running and with it the Fayette County School System showed a net increase of one student over last year.
Regardless the initial numbers, it should be noted that, historically, some number of students will continue to enroll into the fall.
The school system during the first week of school last year showed an enrollment of 20,053 students. Enrollment figures for this school year shows 20,054 students.
A breakdown of the enrollment showed an increase in the elementary and high school grades and a decrease in middle schools. The county’s elementary schools gained 76 students, middle schools lost 90 students and high schools gained 15 students.
The largest gains in the elementary grades came at Inman with 50, Spring Hill with 35, Kedron with 25, North Fayette with 24 and Peeples with 23 additional students over the first week of school last year. Burch showed a net loss of 20 students while Cleveland lost 19, Peachtree City lost 17 and Minter lost 16 students.
In the middle schools, only two schools showed gains in enrollment. Those were Booth with eight students and Rising Star with nine. Flat Rock lost 65 students, followed by Whitewater with 24 fewer students and Bennett’s Mill with 14 fewer students than last year.
High schools also saw a mix of enrollment numbers. Sandy Creek gained 33 students, Fayette County gained 26 students and McIntosh gained 10. Whitewater lost 40 students over the summer while Starr’s Mill had 14 fewer students when school began last week.
Fayette enrollment from a high of 22,367 students in 2006-2007 saw continuing decreases once the Great Recession kicked into high gear in Fayette County. Fayette has yet to recover from those losses.
The Carl Vinson Institute at the University of Georgia in 2011 projected that Fayette County would continue to lose students through 2021, the 10-year project scope. Fayette in 2011 had an enrollment of approximately 20,300 students.
The Vinson study projected that Fayette would lose another 1,649 students by 2021, bringing the enrollment number to 18,647.
To date, Fayette schools have essentially lost 15 years of enrollment growth. Fayette public schools in the 2001-2002 school year had an enrollment of 20,337. In the 2000-2001 school year the enrollment was 19,832, or 222 fewer students than today.
