Brockway Area School District - Enrollment

Enrollment

Brockway Area School District has a low enrollment which is projected to continue to decline through 2015. The Class of 2013 has 58 pupils. The class of 2011, was 79 pupils. The Class of 2007 had 90 pupils.

Over the next 10 years, rural Pennsylvania school enrollment is projected to decrease 8 percent. The most significant enrollment decline is projected to be in western Pennsylvania, where rural school districts may have a 16 percent decline. More than 40 percent of elementary schools and more than 60 percent of secondary schools in western Pennsylvania are projected to experience significant enrollment decreases (15 percent or greater). As the enrollment declines, per pupil administrative costs of the schools continue to rise.

Pennsylvania has one of the highest numbers of school districts in the United States. In Pennsylvania, 80% of school districts serve student populations under 5,000, and 40% serve less than 2,000. Less than 95 of Pennsylvania's 501 school districts had enrollment below 1250 students, in 2007. This results in excessive school administration bureaucracy and not enough course diversity. In a survey of 88 superintendents of small districts, 42% of the 49 respondents stated that they thought consolidation would save money without closing any schools. In March 2011, the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants released a report finding that the state would save hundreds of millions of tax doallars, by cutting the number of school administrations in half through consolidation, with no impact on programs offered to students.