Brandywine Community Schools’ enrollment to receive state aid is slightly lower than desired, Supt. John Jarpe said Monday.
The Brandywine Board of Education met Monday night and received an update from Jarpe on the district’s first week of school.
And overall, Jarpe said, things seem to be going rather smoothly.
“Our enrollment numbers, they’re about where we budgeted,” he said. “Maybe a little bit above that.”
Requests had come in just during the day for records for a couple of students however, he added, “and that’s always disappointing. You want to at least have what you budgeted.”
Enrollment figures are still preliminary and Jarpe said they do not include tuition students or virtual students, who qualify for a prorated amount of state aid, not the full funding.
“Physical numbers of kids are up,” Jarpe said. “But the numbers we can count for full state aid are not as high as we’d like.”
The district is hoping for at least an even outcome.
Outside of enrollment the first week of school was positive, he said, with “all of the bugs you cross your fingers on in that first week,” including busing having been relatively seamless.
Also on Monday night’s agenda, the board was scheduled to approve the hiring of two new kindergarten teachers, a result of the district’s all-day kindergarten program and a bright spot for the future.
As the school year gets under way, in addition to getting into the groove, teachers and administrators have a lot to focus on.
MEAP testing will begin in October and administrators will work with teachers to define what constitutes student growth, something the state is requiring be a factor in new evaluation mandates this year.