Uintah School District Business Administrator Grant Stoddard made a presentation on the district’s enrollment projections during the Board Work Session on Wednesday night. First, Stoddard explained that with many variables at play, the projections are not able to be super precise but they are still useful in planning for the future. While Uintah County has higher than average job growth, Stoddard said they are using conservative projections due to the consideration of variables such as declining birth rates, local housing challenges, and vouchers now available for education that can draw students away from public school. Taking all that into account, enrollment shows a downward trend. While there is higher student numbers in the high school right now, the decline in the elementary school enrollment makes for less concern about approaching capacity in schools for the foreseeable future. A graph shared with the board showed that enrollment peaked in 2014 at 7,912 students and had a sharp drop in 2015 to 7,288 students. Since then there has been an overall decline with this school year’s fall enrollment in the District listed at 6,749 students and the 2024 fall enrollment projection to be 6,635 students.
