Barrington 220 Sees Slight Decrease in Enrollment

Barrington 220 is seeing a slight decrease in enrollment in the new school year as it continues to monitor figures for any fluctuation, officials said.

The 2013/2014 enrollment figures so far show enrollment of 8,882 on the first day of school compared to last year’s figure of 8,929, officials said in a press release.

Decreases have occurred in elementary grades while middle schools and the high school have had a slight increase so far, officials said.

Barrington 220 regularly monitors enrollment to determine the correct balance of students and teachers for optimal class sizes. There are no state requirements for class size, but the District has developed its own formula.

Enrollment data is analyzed on day one, day six and day 30 to identify population fluctuations and to adjust class sizes where appropriate and if possible, according to a release.

Average class sizes in the first weeks are 19.7 in the elementary grades, 23.6 in the middle school core classes, and 24.38 in the high school core classes.

Overall there was a decline of about 140 students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade this year compared to the beginning of the last school year.

Three schools _ Grove Elementary, Lines Elementary and Roslyn Elementary _ have second grade classes that are over the optimal size, according to Barrington 220’s data.

Each school, however, has additional support in the classrooms. Grove has classroom aides while Lines has special education classroom assistants. Roslyn’s second grade is designed to be over the limit in early grades because it is a dual language program, the District’s release stated.

The Board of Education will review the state-required enrollment report after the 30th day of attendance.