Enrollment in schools didn’t increase by much

With this year’s influx of new full-time residents in the Northwest Corner, it was anticipated that enrollment at the region’s public schools would increase significantly.

The addition of new students would have been a boon; enrollment has been steadily declining in recent years, prompting many of the schools to begin advertising and marketing campaigns.

Over the summer, school principals said that they had received many queries about enrolling their children. But when the total number of students was officially tallied, the increases were not significant — and the enrollment decreased at the shared regional high school, Housatonic Valley Regional High School.

The official date for the student tally is Oct. 1. The number of students on that date is used for preparing the next year’s education spending plan. Six towns are in the Region One School District: Canaan/Falls Village, Cornwall, Kent, North Canaan, Salisbury and Sharon. Each town has its own elementary school; they all share the regional high school. 

The only schools that showed a significant increase this autumn were Cornwall Consolidated School, which had 93 students on Oct. 1 compared with 78 last year; and Salisbury Central School, which had 305 students compared to 276 last autumn.

At the high school, the student body decreased to 305 this year from 342 last year.