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Board hears conservative enrollment projections; district flags growth pockets and plans portable for Solheim
Summary
Staff reported increased kindergarten registrations but projected roughly 920 kindergarteners for fall; officials named Solheim, Elkridge and Miller as pressure points and said a portable will be moved to Solheim to address space.
Bismarck Public Schools staff briefed the board March 24 on enrollment projections for the 2025–26 school year and warned of concentrated growth at several elementary schools. The presentations combined current registration counts with conservative future projections because staff want to avoid overestimating growth while state legislative changes (education savings accounts/vouchers) remain uncertain.
Elementary registration: district enrollment staff reported 591 completed kindergarten registrations and 32 started but not completed applications at the time of the presentation, compared with 548 registrations at the same point last year. Staff said the district is projecting about 920 kindergarteners for fall 2025, and expected additional registrations before fall. "We're looking at about 920 right now... I left today at the office at 923," the elementary enrollment presenter said when asked for clarification on projection methodology. Staff also noted an expected differential caused by a large fifth‑grade cohort rolling up into middle school, creating a temporary mismatch in counts.
Capacity concerns: administrators identified Solheim as a continued growth point and said they plan to move an additional portable onto that campus this summer. They also named Elkridge and Miller as schools with upcoming grade‑level “bubbles” that will increase class sizes in the near term. Staff asked parents who move into the district to register by the district boundary deadline (June 1) to help placement; they emphasized principals coordinate placements and balance class sizes across buildings.
Secondary projections: district secondary enrollment was presented conservatively — staff reported a projected increase of 43 students at the middle‑school level and about 90 students at the high‑school level for a projected total district enrollment near 7,570 students. District staff said they had reduced their long‑term growth assumption to about 1% because of uncertainty around legislation and recent enrollment trends.
Financial note: the director of accounting warned that delayed state tax credit distributions (expected in June) were affecting some fiscal analytics and said staff will follow up with more detailed expense analysis for the board.
