Old Harbor student count rises by 10 from last year

The Alaska Department of Education finished its headcount for school districts across the state last month. The village of Old Harbor listed ten more students this year than last year according to the Kodiak Island Borough School District. 

“Last year we had about 29 students out there and this year we have 38 or 39 students and that’s exciting to see growth in a village school,” said district superintendent Cyndy Mika. 

The village has just over 200 year-round residents. That’s down from a  peak of over 300 people just three decades ago, according to U.S. census data. 

But Mika said recently she’s heard families have been moving there with young kids. 

“We’re watching those numbers and seeing what we need to do to support the fast growth,” she said. “We had seven new kindergarteners out there this year.”

But while Old Harbor is growing, the rest of the district shrank by 67 students this year out of its about 2100 enrolled – most of whom were from schools in the City of Kodiak. That means the district is getting tens of thousands of dollars less from the state to fund the archipelago’s schools. 

Kodiak’s population has been on a slight decline over the last several years, and Mika said they planned for a drop about this size. 

“The first Friday of November, we have to turn in our enrollment predictions for the next year and so with that analysis we actually are right where we said we would be so we built our budget based on the lower enrollment numbers,” she said. 

That attrition though has been spread across grade levels and schools, so Mika said the district won’t have to do too much to accommodate the drop in students, like combining classes in elementary schools. 

The Coast Guard announced earlier this year that about 300 additional crew members will be stationed at Base Kodiak over the next few years, however Mika said it’s impossible to predict if that growth will mean more students in classrooms.