District One enrollment up thanks to online students

Enrollment in Big Horn County School District No. 1 is up by 10 students as the new school year begins thanks to the continuing strength of the Wyoming Connections Academy online school, Supt. Matt Davidson reported last week.

So-called brick and mortar schools are down by 26 students in the district – Burlington and Cowley facilities – and preschool is down by eight, but the Connections Academy is up by 44 students, leaving the district showing an increase in enrollment of 10 students.

Davidson said the district has seen an increase in the number of home-schooled students as well as families choosing online options, and he noted that a group in Cody is hoping to start a virtual home-school charter school, with hearings to be held this week.

“That could be impactful going forward, if that becomes another option in the Big Horn Basin,” Davidson said.

Another factor is population trends. Davidson said the Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Education Committee met a couple of weeks ago and shared statistics that, since 2015, the student age population has declined 20 percent.

“That’s a statewide trend and broader,” he said, and pointing to the brick-and-mortar number, he added, “We wouldn’t want to see that trend continue.”

The Rocky Mountain Preschool enrollment hit an all-time low this fall, with just nine students enrolled compared to 21 last year. One factor is Lovell Elementary starting a preschool last year, he said, and he said when that group of students starts going through the years, it creates issues such as how to maintain two first-grade classes with just nine students next year.

Davidson said the district is taking steps to reach out and maintain connections with home-schooling families that already have a connection to the district.

“Certainly, I think we’re going to try to do more to reach out to the homeschool families and see if there are places they want to connect back,” he said. “Sometimes they have kids who may want to take a vocational class or a music class, some of those kinds of things, or they may want to participate in some of the family nights and reading, things like that, so there’s connections. If they decide they want to then bring the kids back, there will be a smoother transition for them.”

The numbers

Burlington is down seven students from 2023-24 in the elementary school, falling from 109 students a year ago to 102 students currently, with the only increase shown in second grade – 14 students. Middle school is up two students from 50 to 52 – with sixth grade down six and seventh grade up eight (eighth grade even).

High school enrollment in Burlington is down two from 72 to 70 with the freshman class down nine from 21 to 12, the sophomore class up 11 from 11 to 22, the junior class down nine from 23 to 14. The result is an overall K-12 decline of seven students. Preschool is up four students from 11 to 15, leaving a slight overall decline in Burlington of three students.

For Rocky Mountain schools, K-5 enrollment is down 13 students from 179 last year to a current number of 166, and the middle school is up by three students from 83 to 86 including an increase in seventh grade from 19 to 32.

For Rocky Mountain High School, enrollment is down nine from 123 to 114 students with the freshman class down from 33 to 26, the sophomore class down from 33 to 30, the junior class up from 30 to 32 and the senior class down from 27 to 26.

Rocky Mountain K-12 enrollment is down 19 from 385 students to 366, and with the preschool down 12 from 21 to 9, brick and mortar enrollment is down by 31 students. Combined with Burlington, enrollment is down 34 students, but Connections Academy enrollment is up by 44 students from 559 to 603, leaving the district as a whole up 10 students.