Enrollment in Northwest Arkansas' public schools has rebounded from last year's decline.
A total of 89,450 students were enrolled in the 15 traditional school districts and six charter school districts across Benton and Washington counties as of Oct. 1, according to recently released data from the Arkansas Department of Education.
That's a 1.7% increase from the 87,973 students recorded Oct. 1, 2020, and a 0.7% increase from fall 2019, just before the covid-19 pandemic hit.
Statewide, K-12 public school enrollment was up 0.2% from 473,004 last year to 473,861 this year, according to the department; however, that's still short of the 479,432 recorded in October 2019.
Last year, enrollment in Northwest Arkansas dropped 1.1% from October 2019 numbers, a decrease most school administrators attributed to the pandemic. The drop was most prominent at the kindergarten level, where enrollment sank 8.3% from the year before.
Kindergartners are back this year. Enrollment is up 10% at that level from last year in Northwest Arkansas. Statewide, kindergarten enrollment rose 5.2% from 34,791 to 36,609.
The Gentry School District's enrollment increased 5.7% from last year to an all-time high of 1,527. That was helped largely by a 63% surge in kindergarten enrollment, from 76 students last year to 124 this year.
Last year's kindergarten enrollment was unusually low because of the pandemic, but this year's number was surprisingly high, said Terrie Metz, Gentry's superintendent. Metz expects the district's growth to continue.
"What I'm being told is we have some of the most affordable housing in the area, and we have multiple little housing developments being built," she said. "Young families are moving into our neighborhoods being built."
School and school district enrollments are recorded annually on Oct. 1. Enrollment affects how much money the state allots for districts. State funding is based on the average K-12 enrollment in the first three quarters of the preceding school year. State foundation funding this year is $7,182 per student.
Schools filling up again
The enrollment figures from Oct. 1, 2020, showed only five of the 15 traditional public school districts in Northwest Arkansas saw increases from the previous year. The largest increase was 1.5% in the Elkins School District.
This fall, however, 12 of those districts saw enrollment increases. The Bentonville, Decatur, Gentry, Gravette, Lincoln and Pea Ridge school districts all had increases of 3% or more from last year.
Charter school enrollment in the region overall also is up 2.4% -- not including local students enrolled in the state's two virtual charter schools, which combined enroll more than 7,000 students from across the state this year.
The Bentonville School District reported 18,536 students as of Oct. 1, a 3.1% increase from last fall's 17,970. The increase continues a relatively steady growth trend that has seen Bentonville's enrollment increase 31% since 2011. Bentonville is the third-largest district in the state behind Springdale and Little Rock.
Bentonville's Evening Star Elementary knows about growth. The school has 810 students this fall, up from 698 a year ago, and up from 637 when it opened in 2019. The school's ideal capacity is 720, according to Principal Ashley Williams.
"We look at every space that we have," Williams said about accommodating the additional students.
Activities teachers -- those who teach things like art and music -- don't have classrooms to call their own. Instead they travel from room to room with carts, Williams said.
The overcrowding at Evening Star should be temporary. Vaughn Elementary, under construction about 5 miles to the northwest, will open next fall. It's expected to absorb nearly 200 students from Evening Star along with students from three other schools, Williams said.
"We really do have great families and great staff and their understanding of the growth in Bentonville is appreciated as we all work together to get students in their zoned schools," she said.
Elsewhere, the Rogers and Fayetteville school districts gained about 250 and 200 students, respectively, from last year, though both districts still fell about 100 students short of their fall 2019 enrollments.
Springdale retained its position as the largest district in the state with 21,796 students, despite dropping 86 from last year's Oct. 1 enrollment figure. Little Rock School District had the second-highest enrollment at 20,786.
Open-enrollment charter schools in the region grew from 3,841 students last year to 3,932 this year, a 2.4% increase. Open-enrollment charter schools are public schools operated by nonprofit organizations other than traditional school districts.
Much of that increase had to do with growth at LISA Academy's Springdale campus, where enrollment is up nearly 20% from last year, from 290 to 347 students. Another charter school, Premier High School, opened with 50 students this fall in Springdale.
Charter enrollment makes up 4.4% of all public school enrollment in Benton and Washington counties, up from 1.9% eight years ago.
Falling numbers
Only two other Northwest Arkansas school districts besides Springdale lost students from last year: Greenland and West Fork both saw declines of about 4%.
Both districts are in extended periods of enrollment decline, but it's been an especially rough for West Fork, which has seen enrollment drop nearly 27% in the past 10 years. West Fork had 870 students as of Oct. 1.
Small classes have been replacing larger graduating classes in recent years. West Fork's average number of students per grade level in grades 9-12 is 77; for grade levels K-8, the average is 62.
There are now 100 students being home-schooled in the West Fork district, a record high for the district, according to Superintendent John Karnes. He hopes to get some of those students back when the covid-19 pandemic subsides.
Karnes is also optimistic a recent infrastructure development will kick-start development in town. The city of West Fork last year connected to Fayetteville's sewer system, increasing the city's capacity for housing and businesses. That should lead to more kids moving into the district, he said.
Karnes calls West Fork "the best kept secret" in Northwest Arkansas as far as being the place to build, especially with its easy access to Interstate 49.
"You can be anywhere in Northwest Arkansas in minutes," he said.
Arkansas Code Annotated 6-13-1603 requires districts that have had fewer than 350 students in the two preceding years to consolidate or be annexed to another district, unless the state Board of Education grants a waiver. That happened locally in 2004 when the Winslow School District was annexed by the Greenland district.
Learning at home
The state's number of home-school students that ballooned by thousands last school year has dipped, but is still thousands over the prepandemic totals.
As of Nov. 17, home school registration was 26,467, said Kimberly Mundell, spokeswoman for the Arkansas Division of Elementary and Secondary Education.
That compares to 26,961 at the same time last year, Mundell said.
However, the preliminary home-school count for the entire 2020-21 school year was a much higher 30,262 -- up 7,381 students from the 22,461 home school students in the 2019-20 school year and 22,104 home-schoolers in 2018-19.
"We haven't rebounded back to where we were before covid-19," Arkansas Deputy Education Commissioner Ivy Pfeffer said about the counts in the state's 261 traditional and charter school systems. The home school numbers provide a good indication of the whereabouts of the former public school students, she said.
"You hear in a lot of other states that they lost touch with significant numbers of students," Pfeffer said. "I think for us -- in terms of overall numbers -- we know where they are because we did see that increase in home-school numbers."
Home schools are not public schools. Home school students are those whose parents or guardians have opted to assume the full responsibility of educating their children – including the financial cost of curriculum. Parents who home school do have to register with the state.
Total enrollment
The number of students enrolled in public schools in Benton and Washington counties has grown 8% since 2015. Here are the totals by year, as recorded each Oct. 1:
Year*Enrollment
2015*82,584
2016*84,328
2017*85,943
2018*87,360
2019*88,867
2020*87,973
2021*89,450
Source: Arkansas Department of Education