Enrollment Roughly as Predicted for New Canaan’s Upcoming School Year

Enrollment as of 10 days before the start of school in New Canaan is up 44 students for Saxe Middle School, down 14 students in the town’s elementary schools and up 38 students for the district as a whole.

Those figures, as of Aug. 17, which is 10 days before the Aug. 27 first day of school, were part of enrollment tables shown by district officials to the Board of Education at its meeting on Monday. Those numbers can change before the school year begins, said Gary Kass, director of human resources for the district, who presented the enrollment data to the Board of Education at its meeting on Monday.

“You never know what will happen in the last two weeks before school starts,” he told the board.

The total student population, from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, is 4,241 — roughly 1 percent higher than it was as of Oct. 1, 2014. At Saxe Middle School, for which the district is planning an expansion, there are 1,336 students — 44 more than last year.

School district officials said they weren’t surprised by the numbers: The number of students is between two estimates which had been projected for the district by different outside consultants — the New England School Development Council (NESDEC) and consultant Peter Prowda.

Here are some of the enrollment figures, which can always change in the days before school starts:

• Elementary school students — 1,646 this year — 1,660 last year — down 14 students from last year — projected at 1,666 by NESDEC, 1,602 by Prowda.
• Saxe Middle School students — 1,336 this year — 1,292 last year — up 44 students from last year — projected at 1,335 by NESDEC and 1,341 by Prowda.
• New Canaan High School students — 1,259 this year — 1,251 last year — up 8 students from last year — projected at 1,243 by NESDEC, 1,241 by Prowda.
• Total students — 4,241 this year — 4,203 last year — up 38 students — 4,244 projected by NESDEC, 4,184 projected by Prowda.

There tends to be a small drop in the number of students between Grades 4 and 5, with some students leaving the public school system for private schools, said Superintendent Bryan Luizzi. That continued this year. Of the 357 fourth grade students as of Oct. 1 last year, a total of 344 are known to be entering Grade 5 at Saxe Middle School this fall, a drop of 13.

(That’s still 40 more students than the previous Fifth Grade class because some grade cohorts are larger, others smaller. This year’s Fifth Grade class, due to graduate high school in 2023, has always been larger than the class due to graduate in 2022. This year’s seventh graders and third graders are also in larger classes.)

This year’s kindergarten class is smaller than expected, with 288 children. It was 302 last year, and NESDEC had predicted 304, with Prowda predicting 271.

New Canaan’s guidelines for class sizes are for 16 to 20 pupils in each Kindergarten through Grade 3 class, 20 to 24 students in each class in Grades 4 to 8 and 14 to 25 students in Grades 9 to 12. All three New Canaan elementary schools have class sizes within the ranges except for Grade 3: an average of 21 pupils per class in East Elementary School; 21.4 in South and 20.5 in West.

There are 1,314 incoming students in grades 1 to 4 in New Canaan’s public elementary schools, compared with 1,336 entering Saxe Middle School this year. If no students joined or left the school system, that would represent a drop of 22 students at Saxe four years from now. But Luizzi said more students tend to move into town and enter the school system than the number who leave it.

The drop in enrollment between the four

Town officials are considering a plan (already approved by the Board of Education in May) to renovate the Saxe Middle School auditorium, expand performing arts classroom spaces and build a 2-story, 12-classroom addition on the northwest corner of the school. The board may vote on a plan as early as next month.