Enrollment increases in Marblehead schools

MARBLEHEAD – For the second year in a row, Marblehead school enrollment is up – and the lion’s share of the increase has gone to the Marblehead Village School.Last June, Superintendent of Schools Paul Dulac anticipated a total school enrollment of 3,236. As of Sept. 1, the enrollment was 3,299 – 63 students more.Marblehead High increased by 20 to 1,001 with an anticipated 981 in Grades 9-12. The big bounce was among sophomores and juniors, who increased by 42 students, offsetting decreases among freshmen and seniors.The Marblehead Village School, which houses Grades 4-6, increased by 32 students. Increases totaling 49 in Grades 4 and 5 were offset by a decrease of 17 in Grade 6.Last year, Dulac pointed out, enrollment increased by 110, making the increase 173 in the past two years. Those increases have all come during the summer, June 17-Sept. 1."Those new students are mostly from families moving to Marblehead from the surrounding towns," Dulac said.The major concern at the Village School, an elementary school, is class size. The increases have pushed class size to the upper end of the School Committee’s class size guideline, 18-22."We did add two fourth grade teachers and a fifth grade teacher last year," he said.Among the town’s elementary school side, the Glover-Eveleth district showed a net increase of 15 students, but the Eveleth School houses five kindergarten classes with 100 students. The Glover School’s 294 students include five Grade 1 classes, five Grade 2 classes and four Grade 3 classes and no kindergarten classes.That is in accordance with a plan Dulac set forth last spring. The change will bring the Glover-Eveleth district in line with the Coffin Gerry district, in which the Gerry School houses kindergarten and Grade 1 and the Coffin School houses Grades 2 and 3. Dulac said last spring that the Glover-Eveleth change would enable district children to benefit from team teaching and the new elementary programs he is introducing next year.The Coffin-Gerry enrollment on Sept. 1 was 325, as predicted, and the Bell School had 369, seven less than predicted.