SCHOOL DISTRICT ENROLLMENT OVERVIEW

With its geographically advantageous location, the Town of Shrewsbury has grown significantly in the past decades.  The federal U.S. Census records the Shrewsbury population growing from 24,146 in 1990 to 38,325 in 2020.  The school population has grown significantly during that time period as well, reaching a high of 6,268 students in 2019.  The chart below depicts the current allocation of students by school and itemizes all School Department facilities.

The distribution of the 5,885 students (from 10/1/21) across grade levels is shown in the chart below.  The Covid-19 pandemic has clearly impacted our enrollment as it has with school districts across our nation.  Our preschool and kindergarten enrollments are down significantly as parents chose to keep their children home instead of schooling.  We do expect PreK-12 enrollment to recover slowly over the next couple of school years back to pre-pandemic levels.

Grade Level Enrollment as of October 1, 2021

It is important to note that students with identified learning disabilities (special education students) become eligible for public school services at age three and remain eligible until age 22.  Also important to note is that approximately ten percent of graduating eighth grade students will opt for a private or vocational/technical high school.  However, we expect that percentage to drop as a new admissions policy for vocational technical high schools was adopted statewide that will disadvantage our students because we are not a member of a regional technical high school.

The growth in both town and school-age population has come with a significant increase in ethnic diversity.  The chart below shows that White students now represent 48.3% of the student body and 51.7% are non-White. The largest ethnic minority group is Asian and the large majority of this population is of South Asian/Indian descent.

Source: Massachusetts Department of Education, District Profile 2021-2022.

Some of the special population student groups reported and tracked by the district, federal, and state governments are summarized below.  The percentage columns compare Shrewsbury Public Schools with statewide percentages using the most recent data available.  One can clearly see that we are above the statewide percent in students whose First Language is not English but below the percentages in all other categories including Students with Disabilities (aka special education students).

Source: Massachusetts Department of Education, District Profile 2021-2022

Definitions of categories:

First Language not English:  a student whose first language is a language other than English and who is able to perform ordinary classroom work in English.

English Language Learner:  a student who does not speak English or whose native language is not English, and who is not currently able to perform ordinary classroom work in English.

Students with Disabilities:  special education students with an Individual Education Plan (IEP).

High Needs:  an unduplicated count of all students in the district belonging to at least one of the following individual subgroups: students with disabilities, English language learners (ELL) and former ELL students, or low income students (eligible for free/reduced price school lunch).

Economically Disadvantaged:  students eligible for SNAP, TAFDC, MassHealth, or in foster care.

 

Enrollment History

The chart below displays Shrewsbury’s “in-district” student enrollment in five-year periods from 1995-present.

For year-to-year enrollment and student demographic information click here to view the data as recorded by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

 

Enrollment Projections

The district uses several sources for both short- and long -term enrollment projections.  These projections assist us in the short term for class size management and staffing while long term projections assist us in our capital planning needs for space.

Recent enrollment projections by the New England School Development Council, the Shrewsbury Town Manager’s Office, and Dr. Jerome McKibben (demographer) are linked below.

New England School Development Council Student Enrollment Forecast:  March 2022

Shrewsbury Town Manager's Office Student Enrollment Projection:  November 2021

Dr. Jerome McKibben (Demographer) Ten-Year Enrollment Forecast:  March 2022