More and more, every year
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e've been writing in this space for years about the demographic tsunami that's hitting Utah's public schools. The state's forecasters figured that between 2004 and 2014, about 150,000 additional students would be entering the K-12 system.
Turns out that dire warning was right -- and then some.
As reported by the Standard's Amy K. Stewart this week, a few Top of Utah school districts are seeing double the number of new students they expected this year, and little reason to look for that trend not to continue.
The Weber School District, for example, expected about 500 new students this year. It's actually seen 1,036 more than were enrolled last fall.
The Box Elder School District got 288 more students this year when it had anticipated only 130 or 140. And the Morgan School District thought it might see 50 additional students, but ended up with an extra 101.
Every one of those students means more tax dollars have to be spent to educate them.
As Weber District Superintendent Michael Jacobsen told our reporter, so many new students are walking through school doors that the district may have to move up its next request to increase bonding for additional schools from 2011 to 2009.
The good news is that new housing in Weber County is accounting for the growth, so Jacobsen predicts the tax rate will remain level, as it did when voters approved a $65 million bond in 2006.
In the Davis School District, officials were a little closer on the forecasts. As of Oct. 1, there were 1,563 additional students over last year, but the prediction was for 1,400 more. The Davis District is used to managing those huge numbers, since it educates 64,395 students.
This is especially challenging, too, for state lawmakers who have been trying to increase school spending dramatically the past few years.
It could be argued with some success that the current funding frenzy may be due in part to a reluctance years ago to ramp up the money for public education, but that's spilled milk.
This is a relentless challenge that will be with us for years to come as this surge of students comes into and moves through the public system. We dare not make decisions that will hamper the state's ability to adequately fund the schools.
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