A demographic study that LT entered during the 2021-2022 school year predicted enrollment for the upcoming 2026-2027 school year to decrease. Last year, the predicted enrollment was 3,816; this year, it is speculated to be around 3,612. With a decrease of slightly over 200 students, it is only expected that the number of course sections will be affected.

Incoming freshmen select courses before the school year begins, and those requests are used to determine the actual number of sections needed for each course to run, Associate Principal Sarah Smith said. 

“The total number of requests drives the total number of sections in each course that we will be offering,” Principal Jennifer Tyrrell said. “Will we have fewer sections? Yes. Every year, whether we have steady enrollment or a decline in enrollment, there are courses that do not run because we don’t have [enough] student interest in them.”

Administrators put effort into trying to run as many requested courses as possible. Most classes only need 18 or more students to run an efficient course, Human Resources Director Ed Piotrowski said. Even then, there are exceptions where course sections will have fewer than the minimum.

“Our goal is to provide offerings that align with student interest while also being mindful of our resources,” Smith said. “While there are instances when enrollment is too low to support running a course, our Board of Education is highly supportive of offering classes with smaller enrollments when possible.”

A decrease in sections will evidently result in a need for fewer teachers, Tyrrell said. However, with retirements and unrelated resignations, there will not be additional teachers released based on decreased enrollment/sectioning this year.

Although a decrease in enrollment on the surface may look like a decrease in staffing, the relationship is not as straightforward, Piotrowski said. The demographic study, used to make these projections on enrollment, includes factors such as housing markers, house occupancy, the economy, and more, to make the predictions as accurate as possible. 

“There has been a little bit of a decrease coming over the past few years that will then end after next school year, according to the demographic study,” Piotrowski said. “It would then increase after that point.”

The 2008 Great Recession, triggered by the housing bubble burst and collapse of multiple banks, is believed to have had an impact on the current dip in enrollment. With families not being financially comfortable, it might’ve made them reconsider having a child at this time, AP U.S. History teacher Anne Marie Leader said. In most cases, a theory such as this is simply a group of historical observations and their eventual results.

“Why is [enrollment] different?” Leader said. “When looking at factors, you realize that school enrollment is a reaction to bigger things in the country. This is just an example. All these years down the road, here comes the freshman class, and that’s where we see the data matching.”