Olympia School District reports enrollment has small increase over last year's numbers

The Olympia School District (OSD) has 9,022.3 full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment this October for the school year 2024-2025, shared Executive Director of Business and Capital Projects Kate Davis at a meeting on Thursday.

The figure is around 29 FTE, more than the 8,993.1 in October last year. This school year, there are 3,737.8 FTE for elementary, 2,172.4 for middle school, and 3,112.1 for high school. 

"We're at 9,022 students for our K 12 Basic Ed (education) enrollment. This includes ALE (Alternative Learning Experience School). It does not include Running Start, Open Doors, or Transition to Kindergarten. So that's keeping consistent with where we were at with all of these prior years," said Davis. 

Full-time equivalent, or FTE, is a calculation that shows how many students would be in attendance if all were enrolled full-time. 

The report stated that the district looks at student FTE for staffing and funding purposes. The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) funds school districts based on FTE, not headcount.  

FTE and headcount in Elementary and middle schools are closely aligned, but High Schools and ORLA have significant variations between the two. 

"The reason for the difference is that our students will enroll in programs offered at New Market Skills Center or participate in Running Start or H-Connect. We do not staff these programs and so we typically do not include this portion of the FTE in our projections at a school level," the report stated.  

Davis said that the variance between OSD's annual average is "quite small," the district is funded on the FTE annual average, not the highest monthly average. 

Level-specific data 

Olympia School District Superintendent Patrick Murphy presented school-specific numbers, showing increases or decreases.

OSD Superintendent Patrick Murphy presented the school-specific numbers, showing varied increases or decreases. 

"So you can see that there are places where we were down more, compared to last year than others. But Olympia High School is up considerably, [and] Jefferson as well. At the elementary level, Lincoln has the greatest increase," said  Murphy. 

Murphy also updated the board on the district's infant and toddler programs. 

"Our infant-toddler program has remained steady. That's our birth to 3 programs, and they have been improving for the last few years. That program serves about 90 to 120 students, and it varies from day to day," said Murphy. 

OSD's preschool programs for 3—to 5-year-old pupils have stayed flat. From 117 students in October 2023-2024, the program has increased to 112 this year. 

There was also an increase in the Transition to Kindergarten (TK) program, which provides school exposure to children who have not had access to a regular early childhood program. 

"We've doubled our Transition to Kindergarten because we went from one program to two. And there was one in Madison. There's now one at LP Brown. So those numbers are going from 16 to 32," said Murphy. 

Murphy said that kindergarten enrollment is down overall. From 550.26 kindergarteners last school year, there were 524 this year.