The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Sisters School District is coming closer to enrollment projections for the school year, although the number of students still lags behind what was anticipated.

"We're climbing," Superintendent Curtiss Scholl said Wednesday, December 7 during the monthly school board meeting. "We're getting nearer to where we expected to be."

Enrollment has a financial impact because the State of Oregon allocates about $7,000 per student to each public school district.

The Sisters School District had a total of 1,081 students as of Friday, December 2, according to statistics released during the board meeting. That was down 37.5 students from the end of the 2015-16 school year and 28 fewer students than were projected at the start of this year.

The biggest losses are at Sisters Elementary School. That school has 18 fewer students than at the end of last school year and is 27.5 students below projections for this year.

Sisters High School is up 4.5 students from projections, but still has 23.5 fewer students than at the end of last year. Those losses are primarily at the freshman level. Sisters Middle School is up four students from the end of 2015-16 and is five students below projections for this year.

Scholl said enrollment has been boosted by some new families with children moving to Sisters, but is tempered by other families moving out of town.

The superintendent recently met with 10 officials from Economic Development of Central Oregon to discuss issues related to school enrollment and other topics. Scholl said the meeting wasn't solely about enrollment, but those who attended discussed Sisters' lack of housing and industry with an eye to improving both.

"How do we create a vibrant community?" Scholl asked - rhetorically - during the board meeting. "We just have a lack of (housing and industry) right now."

On another issue, Scholl said during the board meeting that planning for construction authorized by the District's $10 million bond is proceeding as planned. The District's Bond Facilities Oversight Committee has met for the first time to begin monitoring bond expenditures.

Scholl said about $1.3 million has been spent, with upgrades to the Outlaw running track and new tennis courts accounting for the bulk of that. Smaller projects, such as a new exhaust fan for the elementary school and other deferred maintenance projects, also have been completed.

An architectural firm has been hired, and other work contained in the bond will begin soon.

"Now we're really starting to get rolling," Scholl said.

The District wants to keep citizens fully informed about each step of construction, and officials are considering adding a button on the District's website that will show a running tally of how much of the budgeted amount has been spent.

Oversight committee member Jay Wilkins characterized the first meeting as "a good start to the process." He said the group's challenge is to provide valuable information to the community without overloading people with details.

"We don't have to describe which screw was used in the door at the elementary school," Wilkins said.

School board chairman Jeff Smith agreed, saying it's difficult to provide just the right amount of information without inundating people.