Craig Daily Press

Craig — At the Moffat County School Board’s monthly meeting Thursday night, one resident voiced concerns about an expected subdivision on the west end of Craig bringing in more students than the district could handle.

The concern isn’t a new one to Assistant Superintendent Joel Sheridan.

Westward expansion is a topic he’s heard “since I’ve been in this town,” he said.

Still, Ridgeview Elementary School, the elementary school in west Craig, isn’t the school that’s experiencing student population growth.

Rather, “East (Elementary School) is where we’re bursting at the seams,” Sheridan said.

His remark was in response to questions raised by Craig resident Cindy Looper about a policy and an accompanying regulation governing intra-district choice and open enrollment. The School Board approved both measures later in the meeting.

Before taking their vote, six School Board members who attended the meeting listened to Looper’s concerns about the proposed policy package.

Making sure an appeals process is available for parents whose request to change schools is denied was one of those concerns.

“Sometimes (school transfers are) not just for convenience,” she said. “Sometimes there are real reasons why people want to change to a different” school.

In one instance, Looper said, a local family transferred their children to another district because the children weren’t allowed to change schools.

“I hate to see that happen,” Looper said, “because that means that money is not coming into this district if they’re going someplace else.”

Sheridan said the policy allows parents to appeal decisions made on their transfer and open enrollment requests.

Looper also made mention of possible population growth accompanying a new subdivision.

In March, the City Council approved sketch plans for Western Skies subdivision, a 50-acre parcel slated to contain 149 homes on Craig’s west end.

A population boom in that area could pose problems for the School District’s proposed attendance boundaries, Looper said.

“You could be switching kids to different schools every year based on boundaries,” she said.

However, in Craig and other rural communities, Sheridan said, student population hasn’t kept pace with what appears to be growing numbers in the general community.

School District records show that student enrollment has decreased by 400 students in the last 10 years — from 2,800 during the 1997-08 school year to 2,400 in 2007-08.

These numbers account only for students who are in district schools, he said. The figures don’t include students who have reached full-time equivalency status, or those who were recorded as having fulfilled a required number of student-to-teaching contact hours.

Moffat County isn’t the only district with slipping student numbers. About 80 percent of Colorado school districts are encountering declining enrollment, said Mark Rydberg, district finance director.

Sheridan said he couldn’t say definitively why enrollment numbers are declining.

Still, he said, decreased student populations in small West­ern Slope communities such as Craig could be in part because of the communities’ temporary workers who don’t bring their children with them to the communities in which they work.

Bridget Manley can be reached at 875-1795 or bmanley@craigdailypress.com.