Muirlands Middle School reverses eight-year trend of declining enrollment – ​​San Diego Union-Tribune

After eight straight years of declining enrollment at Muirlands Middle School in La Jolla, the 2024-2025 school year has brought a promising shift in momentum.

Muirlands opened the school year in August with 743 students, exceeding expectations of 695 by almost 7%. According to director Jeff Luna, the unexpected growth has provided the school with additional resources.

To accommodate the 48 additional students, the school added sections for math, science, physical education and world language. The San Diego Unified School District also granted Muirlands additional staffing funding, which Luna decided to use internally.

“When I did staffing based on enrollment, I was able to have conversations with the location and the staff we currently have on campus, and we were able to come to an agreement where they would pick up additional work,” Luna said.

Luna brought in five teachers to take courses in which they specialized, and some took classes during their preparation period. He said strategy made more sense than finding one teacher to teach every subject, which he called a rare occurrence.

“I think it went extremely smoothly – as well as we could hope – and I attribute that all to the fact that we were able to add these extra sections internally and not bring people in from outside where there would be an adjustment period and a learning curve for those coming in,” Luna said.

“That helps with the stability of our curriculum and the high expectations we have for our children on our campus and our education.”

Luna said the school felt enrollments would increase towards the end of the summer holidays, when there was a marked increase in walk-in registrations from people new to the area or transferring from another school.

Luna speculated that Muirlands’ recognition at the local and district level may have led to the higher-than-expected enrollment numbers.

In 2024, Muirlands was one of nine San Diego Unified schools named a California Distinguished School by the state Ministry of Education. It was also described in American news and world report as the No. 1 high school in the district.

Luna said criteria for these awards include the school’s performance on statewide assessments, campus culture and the advancement of underperforming students.

“Those are really nice awards to receive, and there can be many reasons for that, but I think it has something to do with the fact that people at Muirlands are looking seriously at the programs we offer, the success of our students (and) the opportunities that kids have on our campus,” Luna said.

After reaching 1,076 students in the 2015-2016 school year, enrollment at Muirlands fell every yeara total of 696 in 2023-2024. Many California schools struggled to maintain enrollment and attendance rates in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, including several in La Jolla.

At the state level, public school enrollment in transitional kindergarten through 12th grade fell below 6 million in 2023, and the California Department of Revenue says that will drop to 5.19 million over the next decade if current trends continue. to continue.

Locally, San Diego Unified is staring down the barrel projected deficit of $176.4 million for next school year, in part due to an overall enrollment decline (which impacts state funding), higher operating costs and the expiration of COVID relief funds.

On the plus side, Muirlands isn’t the only school in SDUSD’s five-campus La Jolla cluster seeing a promising increase in its student population.

La Jolla Elementary and Torrey Pines Elementary both saw increases in enrollment this year.

LJES performed better than expected for the third year in a row and enrolled 565 students this school year, almost 40 more than in 2023-2024.

Torrey Pines now ranks at 467, up from 452 last year.

To better equip La Jolla Elementary for the increased population, the school was assigned a part-time assistant principal for the first time in its existence. history.

LJES Director Stephanie Hasselbrink attributed the enrollment growth to the post-pandemic recovery and the completion of expanded school operations. renovation project.

The three-and-a-half-year project touched “every part of the school,” Hasselbrink said, including modernizing infrastructure, removing portable classrooms in favor of new buildings and improving safety measures.

“It was a huge challenge, especially leading up to the pandemic,” Hasselbrink said. “I think the construction team and the district have done a wonderful job.”

The school now offers two universal transitional kindergarten, or UTK, courses after building limited classroom space.

Hasselbrink said she expects the three-year increase in enrollment to continue and bring the school’s student population to its pre-pandemic level of more than 600.

Originally published: October 26, 2024 at 6:20 PM