Kyrene committee hears enrollment decline, $20.6 million funding loss and set to advise on M&O override

Superintendent Laura Tenas opened the Kyrene School District Long-Range Planning Committee meeting, telling the group the committee was convened by a recent vote of the district’s governing board and that members would help draft a skeleton long-range plan for the board’s consideration.

The meeting’s first substantive presentation was a demographic and enrollment study led by consultant Rick Brammer of Applied Economics, who said Kyrene’s enrollment peak has passed and the district is seeing long-term decline driven by aging households, falling birthrates and increased school choice. Brammer said Kyrene’s total enrollment on the 40th day this year was 12,849 students, of which about 10,016 live inside the district boundary; roughly 22% of the district’s students live outside the boundary, he said. He told the group a scenario commonly used in planning would see the district lose about 1,500 students over the next five years if current trends continue, though he cautioned the range of possible outcomes is wide.

Susie Osmayer, the district’s executive director for accountability and performance measurement, explained the district’s service rate — “the number of students served divided by the eligible school…