South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

Enrollment decline requires plan to cut taxpayer support

The COMPASS (Charting the Oakville-Mehlville Path to Advance Successful Schools) program learned that the total student enrollment in the Mehlville School District will decrease by 1,800 students over the next 12 years.

That means it will need 72 fewer teachers at a student-to-teacher ratio of 25:1.

Fewer students means fewer teachers.

Fewer teachers means fewer administrators and support staff. Fewer students could mean closing certain facilities which will reduce maintenance and overhead costs. Sounds reasonable to me.

We taxpayers gave the district more money as student enrollment grew. Now that the district is assured of significant shrinkage, we should expect COMPASS to deal with declining enrollment and an aging community by planning for a substantial reduction in taxpayer support from current levels.

Kent Bettale

Oakville

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