RISON - Both the Cleveland County and Woodlawn School Districts have more students en‐rolled in their respective dis‐tricts than they ended the 2021-22 school year with.
Cleveland County Superinten‐dent Craig Dupuy reported this week that enrollment has now exceeded 700 while Woodlawn Superintendent Dr. Kevin Han‐cock said his district began the new school year with 577 on campus.
Both of those were improve‐ments over the previous school year, and show a possible rever‐sal of a declining trend that has been in play over much of the past five years.
Cleveland County began its new school year last Monday, Aug. 15, with 691, which was lower than the 702 students that district finished with last year. Still, that 691 was 60 students better than the 631 that were in attendance for the Cleveland County School District on the first day of the 2021-22 school year.
Dupuy reported Tuesday, Aug. 23, that enrollment has continued to increase over the past week and is now at 709.
The 577 students at Wood‐lawn to start the new year was well over the 545 to 550 stu‐dents the district has been aver‐aging over the past few school years. Woodlawn’s figure in‐cluded 303 students in the ele‐mentary (kindergarten through 6th grade) and 274 in the high school (7th through 12th grades).
Both the Cleveland County and Woodlawn School Districts have both regularly seen net gains from the School Choice Act as more students choose to transfer into the school district rather than transfer out. Cleve‐land County had 17 School Choice students transfer in this year and Woodlawn had 26.
While both superintendents welcome those students, grow‐ing enrollment through School C hoice has its limits.
Several students from the Wat‐son Chapel School District have transferred into the Cleveland County School District over the past three years. However, that influx slowed this year.
Dupuy attributed the declining transfer rate to the fact that those families outside the district who have the means to get their chil‐dren to a school outside their home district have already made their move. Meanwhile, he said those without the means to transport their children simply cannot make the move.
Another factor is that the state limits the number of students that can leave their resident school district within a school y ear. State law allows only a cer‐tain percentage of the student body to transfer before School Choice transfers are no longer allowed.
Hancock, meanwhile, said staffing at the receiving school district is also a factor.
For instance, Hancock said Woodlawn actually received more than 26 School Choice ap‐plications this year but had to decline some due to staffing is‐sues.
State law requires a certain student-to-teacher ratio for each class. When a district exceeds that ratio, the district must hire another teacher to reduce the ra‐tio. Hancock said it is not finan‐cially feasible for a district to add staff for just a few students.
He said the student-to-teacher ratios can be especially difficult at the high school level. Even a single student can upset the ratio in a particular subject area like math or science. He said high school teachers, especially those in high-demand areas like math and science, can be very difficult to find, especially n this area of the state since more affluent ar‐eas elsewhere can offer better pay.
Area Districts See Decline
While both school districts have within Cleveland County have benefited from the School Choice Act, seeing any signifi‐cant increase in enrollment through School Choice is un‐likely since the overall pool of students in surrounding school districts is shrinking.
The Herald compared the en‐rollment figures of areas school districts over a five-year period from 2016-17 to the 2020-21 school year. The enrollment fig‐ures used were from the latest available from the Arkansas De‐partment of Education through the MySchoolInfo website.
The survey included the aver‐age enrollment for both the Cleveland County and Wood‐lawn School Districts as well as each district’s neighboring dis‐tricts. It compared the average enrollment listed for each dis‐trict for the 2016-17 school year to those same figures for the 2020-21 school year. Those school districts surveyed in‐cluded Cleveland County, Woodlawn, Fordyce, Drew Cen‐tral, Pine Bluff, Sheridan, Star City, Warren and Watson Chapel.
Of those nine districts, only one, Drew Central at Monti‐cello, showed an increase in en‐rollment over that five-year span. All eight other school dis‐tricts, including both Cleveland County and Woodlawn, showed a decline.
Drew Central showed a gain of 112 students (about 11 percent) over that five-year period, in‐creasing from 997 students for the 2016-17 school year to 1,109 for the 2020-21 school year.
The most significant decline among neighboring districts was in the Pine Bluff School District, where enrollment fell from 3,912 students in 2016-17 to 2,799 students in 2020-21, That was a decline of 1,113 students or about 28 percent of its student population.
Both the Cleveland County and Woodlawn School Districts showed a yearly decline over the five-year period based on the data from the MySchoolInfo website.
Cleveland County had 863 students enrolled for the 2016-17 school year. That num‐ber fell to 848 in 20-17-18; to 832 in 2018-19; to 781 in 2019-20 and to 692 in 2020-21. That was a loss of 171 students, or about 20 percent of the stu‐dent population over the fiveyear period.
Woodlawn had 578 students on campus with the start of the 2016-17 school year. The num‐ber fell to 564 in the 2017-18 school year; to 559 in the 2018-19 school year; to 555 in the 2019-20 school yaer; and 547 for the 2020-21 school year. That reflects a loss of 31 stu‐dents or 31 percent of the popu‐lation.