Fall enrollment in Gorham schools is slightly above the number of students the district had in June, but the number of high school juniors has jumped 22.8 percent over last year.
District figures on Sept. 1 show enrollment at 2,765, up 36 from 2,729, or 1.3 percent, from the 2005-06 school year. The projected enrollment for this fall had been 2,695.
The biggest increase is in the junior class, which jumped up by 45 students from last year’s 197 to 242. The school department had expected 220 juniors.
John Drisko, Gorham High School principal, said students in that particular class had numbered 50 to 60 more than most other classes as it moved through the school system.
“We call them the ‘bubble class,’ ” Drisko said.
Drisko said that the high school had to hire extra teachers when students in that “bubble class” were freshmen. “Its not that a bunch of people moved in,” Drisko said, “This is the size of the class.”
This year’s freshman class at the high school has 267 students, the most of all classes in the district. The figure is up 23 students from 244 last year, representing a 9.4 increase.
Enrollment in Grade 4 represented the largest decrease, falling by 28 students from 224 last year to 196.
The high school has the biggest increase in student numbers of the district’s five schools. There are 914 high school students, up 48 from 866 to 914, or a 5.5 percent increase.
Numbers are up slightly at Gorham Middle School with 657, four more than last year’s 653; the Village School has 615, a drop of 18 students from 633; Narragansett School has a slight decrease, down 3 students from 437 to 434; an already overcrowded White Rock School has 145, up 5 from 140.
In figures from 25 years ago, the high school had 504 students; Narragansett, 461; Village, 222; White Rock, 161; Little Falls, now vacant, 124; and the former Shaw Junior High School, 306.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
