Lexington Looks to Improve Enrollment Forecasts

Enrollment projections are tricky business for public school districts, and most area administrators admit they would like to tighten up their numbers.

According to Superintendent of Schools Paul Ash, the way to do that is to close the gap between the number of children the schools’ list as students and the number of children listed on the town census.

That’s a process that will begin this year, Ash said in a May 10 report to the Lexington School Committee.

Ash said he and the demographer he works with concluded that, before looking too much into their own methodologies, it’s prudent to review the quality of data they’re getting.

As a baseline for this comparison, Ash got a spreadsheet with the names and addresses of children in the schools and reviewed it against the census data.

“And there was a gap,” he said. “We had a large overlap, but there was a significant number of students whose names were not on the census but were on the list from the school department.”

Working with Town Clerk Donna Hooper, Ash said he hopes to put a dent in this discrepancy by the September.

Last Friday, a letter went home to parents or guardians of kids in the schools who are not listed on the census, including an explanation of how to get the kids registered, Ash said, explaining that process should play out in the next three weeks.

During that time, the gap will shrink some, and Ash will send out another mailing in June, in which he will indicate the recipients received the prior letter but have not registered their child or children. He will also include language explaining that, come September, the district will only be able to enroll students who are residents of the town.

“Hopefully, language like that will motivate people who did not get around to it the first time,” said Ash. “We do have a duty, at some point, to provide an education for students who are living in town and, if some people aren’t living in town, to appropriately deal with that.”

Lexington historically does not participate in school choice, but it was unclear from Ash’s report to the School Committee whether illicit enrollment of nonresidents is an issue in Lexington.  

Ash said this approach should work fairly well with most families of students currently attending the Lexington Public Schools. However, reaching parents of pre-school children and non-English speaking families are aspects of the plan that are still in development.

“There needs to be some real sensitivity here, because it’s very likely given Lexington, and its mix, that there are people who are not speaking English,” said Ash. “We should not read a non-response to mean that they don’t live here. We’re going to have to develop a second step, a third step, a fourth step.”

Some of those steps could include enlisting the assistance of school principals, who often know the families of their students than a district administrator would, Ash said.