Enrollment trending up for local school districts

Student enrollment numbers are moderately up throughout the three local school districts after the first few weeks of the school year.

The Mullan School District No. 392 is currently at 102 students enrolled, with 52 students at John Mullan Elementary (K–6 grade) and 50 at Mullan Jr./Sr. High School. This total is up one student from last year when they began the year at 101.

The Kellogg School District No. 391 currently has 1,087 students enrolled throughout the district, including 501 elementary students with 434 students at Pinehurst Elementary School and 67 at Canyon Elementary School.

Kellogg Middle School currently has 254 students (grades 6-8) and Kellogg High School has 317.

The KSD is up two students from a year ago.

At this juncture, KSD has limited room for growth at the elementary levels due to buildings being dangerously near capacity, however there is room at both Kellogg Middle and High Schools.

"Our elementary schools are near capacity when you take existing, regular classroom space as the initial limiting factor," Kellogg superintendent Nancy Larsen said. "There is no room for additional classrooms. Grades K, 1, 3 & 5 are all full with a small amount of space at grades 2 & 4. The Middle School also has no additional classroom space, but we could add a few students in each grade level. The High School has some room to add students to existing classes; however, some classes are at capacity."

Wallace School District No. 393 is currently enrolling 485 total students, which is up from 479 students from last year. Of those students, 279 attend Silver Hills Elementary School, with 206 attending Wallace Jr./Sr. High School.

What makes that figure so interesting is that Wallace has 33 students enrolled from other districts.

Mullan High School principal Don Kotschevar spoke about different cultures being one of the main reasons why out of district enrollment numbers are growing.

“Take a look at Wallace, they aren’t a big school, but they are a bigger school than we are,” Kotschevar said. “They have a different culture than we do, and the same goes for Kellogg. And that is not a bad thing at all. Some kids fit in with certain cultures better. We have a few kids from Mullan who go to Wallace and we have kids from Wallace who come up here to Mullan. It really is whatever is best for the kid in my opinion.”