Major Drop in School Enrollment Projected

Enrollment in the Strongsville City Schools is expected to dip below 6,000 next school year, a sign of an aging population and -- potentially -- the effects of the eight-week teachers strike.

Assistant Superintendent Cameron Ryba said he is projecting the 6,200-member student body will drop to 5,800 for the 2013-14 school year.

"Enrollment continues to decline," Ryba said.

Ryba said the effects are being seen first in elementary schools. While Strongsville High School is graduating classes of well over 500, kindergarten registration hovers at about 250 a year.

He is estimating that next school year, the high school's enrollment will drop by 41 students and the middle schools will lose 63. The elementary schools, meanwhile, will lose 300.

And the effects of the teachers strike could take another bite out of enrollment. As of late April, 62 students had left the school system because of the strike, and Ryba said he continues to hear from area parochial schools that "parents are looking at all their educational options" for next year.

"Hopefully, we will retain them in Strongsville schools, but that's something we have to plan for as well," Ryba said.

Layoffs Loom

That will probably lead to teacher layoffs. While 13 teachers are retiring this year, they are mainly in the upper grade levels, leaving an excess in the elementary schools. 

"I will most likely be coming to you in the future with reducations in our teaching staff at the elementary school level," Ryba told the School Board last week.

The decline in enrollment is not new. Last year, Superintendent John Krupinski noted the trend, saying there were 296 fewer students in the Strongsville schools for the 2012-13 school year than the year before.

Krupinski blamed a lack of all-day kindergarten. He said parents are enrolling their 5-year-olds elsewhere because Strongsville does not offer full-day sessions.

This school year, only 262 kindergartners enrolled in Strongsville schools -- down from 408 in the 2006-07 school year.

Ryba said the district typically sees a greater influx of first-graders than kindergartners as parents put their children back in public school for full-day classes.

"That may mitigate some of the 300 (the district may lose at the elementary school level next year," Ryba said.

Full-day kindergarten is expected to be offered in Strongsville in a few years, after a new middle school is constructed and building use is reconfigured.

Other Factors

An aging population with more empty nesters may explain the overall decrease.

"People have stayed in Strongsville after their families have grown up," Krupinski said last year. "We have grown up, whether you call it graying or maturing, it's happening."

U.S. Census figures show the median age leaped from 39.1 in 2000 to 45.2 in 2010

Statewide, the median age is 38.8.

People 62 and older, who a decade ago made up 27.2 percent of the city's population, today account for 36.2 percent.