Arlington schools almost assuredly will see a year-over-year bump up in enrollment when final figures are reported to state officials Sept. 30.
But how will the school system stack up to its own projections? That may be more of a tossup.
The official 2023-24 student count (pre-kindergarten to 12th grade) was 27,452, counting students in seats as of Sept. 30, 2023. Arlington officials in mid-August said enrollment for 2024-25 already was running ahead of that figure.
But in order to be in line with the school system’s own projections, the official count will need to hit:
• A student total of 28,099, which was the projection made as part of long-term planning last autumn, or
• A student total of 28,161, which was the revised projection disseminated last spring.
The lower figure was used in planning the fiscal 2025 budget adopted by School Board members; the higher one was used as part of the school system’s capital-improvement plan adopted this springtime.
School officials will report first-day-of-school totals several days after classes begin on Aug. 26. Typically, that initial number rises between the start of school and Sept. 30, when the formal count is tallied. That’s the figure used to allocate funding from the state government.
During pre-COVID times, projections were for sustained, significant growth in Arlington’s student population into the future. But more recent calculations envision flat growth, with the total number of students in pre-kindergarten to 12th grade hovering between 28,000 and 28,900 for the next decade.
If he had any inkling as to what the final figure might be, Superintendent Francisco Durán was playing his cards close to his vest at the most recent (Aug. 13) School Board meeting.
“We do anticipate seeing more students than we did last year,” Durán said, but did not offer an opinion on how it would compare to projections.
