Wayland High School Building Committee
Wayland High School
Wayland schools is recorded as part of the Massachusetts Department of Education’s annual census of children attending the Commonwealth’s public schools. On October 1, 2009, total enrollment in Wayland High School was 903 students.
The chart below shows WHS enrollment from 1951 to the present:
Projecting Enrollment
School enrollment is driven by national, regional, and state trends as well as a number of local factors. These local factors include changes in town population, births within that population, the nature of housing turnover within the town, new construction within the town, and the funding decisions that the town chooses to make with respect to school and municipal services. While it is possible to learn from past trends, they do not necessarily reflect how events will unfold in the future.
Three methodologies for projecting school enrollment include 1) Cohort Survival Ratio method, 2) Five-Year Numerical Average and 3) NESDEC approach.
1) Wayland Public Schools uses a three-year Cohort Survival Ratio (CSR) to develop internal enrollment projections. The CSR is the fraction of children moving from one grade to the next. This method has been employed for many years by the school administration to make enrollment projections and takes into account housing growth, migration, retention, withdrawals, transfers and births over the three previous school years. It produces highly reliable projections for enrollment in Grades 1-12; however, it is less accurate in predicting kindergarten enrollments which may be affected by postponed kindergarten enrollment, attendance at private full-day kindergarten programs in the area, adoption rates and housing turnover.
2) The Five-Year Numerical Average considers the difference between the number of births recorded five years earlier to the number of kindergartners. It typically yields results very close to that of the CSR Method.
3) NESDEC, the New England School Development Council, is a not-for-profit organization that provides services to school districts in New England. Their approach to projecting enrollment uses the CSR method augmented by other town-specific information.
Using these methods for predicting enrollment, the following chart compares current to projected enrollment at Wayland High School:
2008-2009 2009-2010 Projected Enrollment
Grade Actual CSR % Chg 5-Year Avg % Chg NESDEC % Chg
9 222 239 +7.7% 239 +7.7% 235 +5.9%
10 229 216 -5.7% 217 -5.2% 207 -9.6%
11 223 227 +1.8% 226 +1.3% 221 -0.9%
12 217 223 +2.6% 221 +1.8% 217 0%
Total 891 905 +1.5% 903 +1.3% 880 -1.2%
At present, the trend appears to be more up than down, but a number of volatile factors such as housing, turnover, the Town Center, private school enrollment, etc. make this projection far from conclusive.
For more information
Current and future enrollment is a critical factor in space planning for Wayland High School. Enrollment is regularly monitored by the Wayland Public Schools.
Click here for the November 2008 Enrollment Presentation to MSBA and the
MSBA Enrollment Projection for Wayland,spring 2009. In January, 2009 the MSBA approved a design enrollment of 900 students for Wayland.
Current Enrollment
Each year, on the first school day of October, the total number of students enrolled in
