A slight enrollment increase in Lawrence public schools pushed the overall tally to 10,406.
The official headcount in the Lawrence school district Monday was 10,406, a modest increase of 80 students that was in keeping with expectations.
"The tradition here has been slow growth," said Jim Freeman, the district's executive director of business services. "Slow growth is much more desirable to explosive growth. It's also more desirable than enrollment decline."
Totals increased at the high school and junior high levels but decreased narrowly among elementary schools.
Freeman said the annual report was important because the state will use it to determine how much funding flows from Topeka to Lawrence for public education.
Under the existing school-finance blueprint, an extra 80 students would add about $300,000 to the district's treasury next year. A planned $50 per pupil increase in state aid next year for a district with 10,400 students would translate into an extra $500,000.
That money will be needed to handle years of accumulated enrollment growth at the elementary level in Lawrence. A new school on West 15th Street is expected to open in August 2000. It will absorb an estimated 200 students in its first year.
Those students likely will be drawn from Quail Run and Deerfield schools, two of the district's three largest. Deerfield is at capacity. Quail Run is the district's most overpopulated elementary, serving 627 students in a building designed for about 500.
"That's the place we're hurting the most," Freeman said.
An addition of 35 students pushed Sunflower School -- this year's growth hotspot -- to capacity. Anticipated enrollment expansion there may require installation of portable classrooms next year.
The report affirmed the diversity of schools that exist in the Lawrence district. Consider this: Each grade level at Quail Run (with a minimum 80 students) has more students than the entire student body at Grant School (64 students).
Enrollment expanded at seven elementary schools, dropped at 10 and stayed the same at Grant.
Lawrence's district now has three junior high schools -- which enroll seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders -- with more than 600 students. Central Junior High was the only junior high to encounter an enrollment decline and remains the smallest at 529, while South Junior High retained its standing as the biggest at 673.
Free State High and Lawrence High enrolled 2,434 students, a combined increase of 56. The 10th-grade class is the largest grade in the district with 835 students.
-- Tim Carpenter's phone message number is 832-7155. His e-mail address is tcarpenter@ljworld.com.
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