Board reviews ninth‑grade enrollment trends and a $53,000 outdoor‑learning grant

The RSU 26 Board spent substantial time reviewing ninth‑grade tuition and enrollment trends while staff and board members discussed recruitment dynamics and how cohort effects affect tuition revenue.

Superintendent (speaker 2) presented a seven-year data review showing wide variation in the district’s share of tuition ninth‑grade students — "the percentage varies a lot, from a low of 32% back in 2018 to a high ... of 51 percent" — and explained that year‑to‑year shifts can be driven by cohort size and local recruitment. District data staff (Lynn, speaker 11) provided a current conservative projection of 23 incoming freshmen for the coming year and noted that small numerical changes in these cohorts significantly affect percentage figures in a small program.

Board members discussed causes for variation, including regional enrollment shifts, superintendent agreements, athletics influence and state rule changes (referenced as changes in RC 34), and flagged the need for a regional enrollment study via PANCIS to better forecast sending-town trends. The superintendent and board noted ongoing efforts to pull additional data (for example, ESSA dashboard numbers) to get clearer denominators for the percentage calculations.

During reports the board also heard that Meredith Diamond secured a $53,000 grant for an outdoor‑learning initiative for ninth graders (a New Roots/Shared Ground program) that would run the week of Aug. 5 at the Caribou Bagh Outdoor Learning Center and aims to connect rising ninth graders, particularly disadvantaged students, with faculty and families ahead of the school year.

Board members said the tuition conversation will be important for budget planning and recruitment strategies; the administration plans to report back with additional data pulled from state dashboards and the results of any regional enrollment study efforts.