(La Porte, IN) - The La Porte School Corporation officials will address declining enrollment numbers in the coming weeks and months.

 

Interim Superintendent Dr. Peggy Hinckley said the number of students has dropped from about 6,300 in 2008 to 5,688 last year, with the reasons why including school choice, where parents can use vouchers to pay for their children to attend another public or private school.

 

“All of those things contribute to our decline,” she said.

 

Hinckley said the La Porte school district is also not growing in population, and that contributes to losing students at a time when birth rates, in general,  continue to fall.

 

“We’re not growing like Crown Point or Lake Central. That’s just not where we are,” she said.

 

Hinckley also said enrollment losses, from year to year, have mostly been only in the double digits, but over time those numbers have added up.

 

“It’s a gradual thing but we have to address it,” she said.

 

The school corporation receives about $$8,640 per child. As a result, Hinckley explained, financial losses from continued enrollment declines could, eventually, hinder the ability of the school corporation to operate at current expenditure levels.