Preliminary figures indicate Mansfield City Schools enrollment has increased by more than 4 percent over opening week last year.
Initial head counts submitted by the district’s eight buildings total 3,838 students. That’s 162 more than the same week in 2013.
“These numbers are preliminary. We expect they will increase. Registration is continuing at our buildings and some students won’t arrive until after Labor Day,” Superintendent Brian Garverick told the Financial Planning and Supervision Commission on Thursday.
The closing of two charter schools is a factor in the enrollment surge. In May Constellation Schools, LLC, based in Parma, announced it would cease to operate its elementary school in MCS’s former Stadium building and its intermediate school in the former Ranchwood building.
Garverick received permission from the commission to place a long-term substitute teacher in one of the six kindergarten classrooms at Sherman Elementary. The vacancy was created when teacher Kim Johnson was appointed interim assistant principal at Sherman.
“At this time we want to put a long-term sub in there until we can digest the overall situation. We’ll look at it again in a month,” Garverick said.
Commission members Paul Marshall, chairperson; Sharon Hanrahan, Jill Haring and Mark Brunn also gave conditional approval for the hiring of three teachers – math, science and online credit recovery – and an attendance secretary at Senior High.
“We will have to know how the cost will ripple out during the (financial) recovery plan period and impact the five-year forecast,” Marshall said.
By building, preliminary district enrollment includes:
Prospect Elementary – 356
Sherman Elementary – 632
Woodland Elementary – 291
Spanish Immersion – 283 (This includes 124 children in preschool classes that are not part of Spanish Immersion.)
Malabar Intermediate -- 775
Middle School – 560
Senior High – 895
Hedges Campus – 56