Anchorage Daily News

JUNEAU -- Public school enrollment in Juneau dropped for the fifth straight year to the lowest student population since 1990, according to a recently released tally by the state.

School officials said the effects will be minimal and are still expecting a large boost in state education funding next year. Nine and a half teaching positions will be eliminated because of lower enrollment. Superintendent Peggy Cowan said she expects retirement and other forms of attrition will prevent layoffs.

"To date, it hasn't had a huge impact on the program," Cowan said.

Cowan said she thinks Juneau's school population will eventually grow and that building a new school, the multimillion-dollar Thunder Mountain High School, was a wise decision.

"It will be a relief at this point on our crowded facilities," Cowan said.

The district's average daily attendance is about 5,073 students in 2008, down about 83 students from 2007. The district's highest enrollment in the past 20 years was in 1999, when there were about 5,701 students.

The 2008 numbers were released last month by the state Department of Education and Early Development.

Statewide, enrollment dropped for the second straight year to its lowest level since 1998, for a total of about 128,977 students.

Most school districts, including those in Anchorage and Fairbanks, continued to lose students, while the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District was one of the few districts that's been rising in recent years.

Greg Williams, a state demographer with the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, said the slide was due to the fact that the youngest children of baby boomers are now in their 20s.

"The big wave has passed out of school age at this point," Williams said. "There's going to be a continued decline in enrollment for a while yet."

Many rural areas in Southeast Alaska have experienced steep declines in student enrollment over the past decade, with some districts losing about half their students.

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