WHUFSD Superintendent Dan Rehman sat down with Echo to discuss a recent Newsday article citing West Hempstead as the Long Island town with the greatest decline in enrollment. Per the article, West Hempstead enrollment is down 23.1% over the last decade, with Lawrence coming in nearest at 19% decline (audio only):
Rehman cited two key factors in the drop: “One is the loss of the students from Island Park… When [the] last contract ended, then they stopped attending West Hempstead, and now Island Park students just attend the Long Beach School District. And the other impact is the increasing numbers of school age children who have moved into West Hempstead but attend private school.”
The overall enrollment throughout the district’s schools have been holding steady over the last few years according to Rehman, averaging around 115 students per grade at the Chestnut Street school and 140 in the secondary school.
The conversation turned to budgeting issues, including potential cuts in state aid and the school reserve. When asked whether specific cuts to the District were coming, Rehman said “you’re hearing rumors through Nassau and Suffolk County, I don’t know about upstate that there are talks of closing buildings… So eventually it’s going to affect all of us. We didn’t get as much state aid as we typically do. I can tell you that we did receive state aid. So we were very fortunate that we did. But if we were fully funded… we probably would have received another $125,000, which we didn’t.”
The Superintendent also discussed the recent snow day earlier this week along with the many incredible accomplishments by our students for this school year.
