Amidst a gradual decline in enrollment numbers, the school emerges as a school of choice option for the upcoming year.
“They’re [incoming school of choice students] very conscientious of their education,” Principal Brandon Manzella said. “They’re making a change because they want to better Utica Community Schools.”
One of the last schools in the district to become a school of choice, the Board of Education and many committees surrounding the decision process declared the school one of choice for the upcoming year starting with the incoming sophomores.
“It was only over the last couple of years that we started to shrink in size. Now that our numbers are dwindling down and our population is decreasing, that’s why we opened up,” Manzella said.
Through the years 2016-24, a visible enrollment decline exists. Numbers dropped from 2,028 down to 1,724. Opening up the school to new sophomores initiates a gradual process towards increasing enrollment. Currently, at least six new students are expected to come, according to Manzella.
“This is something where we’re very, very cautious about how we do this. It’s not like all of a sudden we put a billboard up, ‘Hey, we’re taking as many students as we possibly can.’ We have to see the impact,” Manzella said.
The decision hasn’t been promoted at large, so carefully enrolling students allows for improvement while analyzing the impact. The school contains a capacity for about 2,300 students, which leaves room for about 600 more students.
“When we did have the pandemic we had a lot of students find alternative measures of school in different ways, whether it was online, parochial and so forth,” Manzella said.
Additionally, another reason the enrollment numbers have been declining is due to low birth rates. In 2022, Michigan’s total fertility rate was approximately 1.57, and is projected to decline even further to 1.39 by 2050, according to Michigan Advance. On account of this data, enrollment numbers in schools will reflect directly.
These stats show that in the projected future there may be an impact on school extracurriculars. Sports teams and elective classes will feel the brunt of the impact with the population decline. With not enough students, in the future there may come a time a class or team gets cut.
“Although our numbers [girls softball] have been declining for the past few years, we are confident our numbers are going to start to improve,” varsity softball coach Robert Hall said.
With the inevitable changes on the rise, Manzella upholds an optimistic attitude despite the declining school population.
“Who will be coming in and the quality of people who do come in from school of choice, generally are very favorable in regard to putting academics and education at a top level,” Manzella said. “And so I’ve had really good luck with school choice.”
