This summer we are busy preparing to welcome close to 375 new kindergarten students along with 5200 returning students to our dynamic classrooms and schools. The summer months are busy for staff who are enrolling new students, creating class schedules, deep cleaning school buildings, and preparing instructional lessons. Many teachers attend professional development sessions during the summer and spend time reading the latest research related to what they will be teaching in the fall. In a sense, summer is a transition more than a break.
The school district is also in a time of transition. Fifteen years ago, we served close to 7,500 students across the district. This year, we will open our classroom doors to just over 5,500 students. In order to get an accurate picture of why our student numbers are lower and what we can expect from the future, the school district recently contracted with Hazel Reinhardt, a retired Minnesota state demographer who has a three decade career studying school enrollment trends and projections across the midwest. Reinhardt has conducted three previous enrollment studies over the last 15 years for Forest Lake Area Schools with great accuracy.
The most significant factor contributing to the lower numbers of students is declining birth rates in Minnesota and across the country. According to Reinhardt, the birth rate required to maintain current enrollment levels in Minnesota schools is 2.11 children per family. Currently, the birth rate is 1.73 children per family. This low birth rate means there are now fewer school age children in Minnesota than there are people 65 years of age or older.
Of course, families with school age children also have a choice about which school their students attend. Minnesota has a strong charter school system and open school enrollment legislation that allows families to choose other school options. According to the recent Reinhardt study, the rate of district students attending charter schools or neighboring schools has remained flat over the last five years. The Forest Lake area, like other outer ring suburbs, has a higher number of homeschooled students than elsewhere in the state, but those numbers have only seen slight increases over the last five years.
It’s not likely that large numbers of students will move into our district in the near future. If you drive throughout the community you may see some residential property development taking place, however Reinhardt’s study points to the reality that townhomes, condominiums and apartment units have very few school-age students. Even single-family detached homes are resulting in fewer school-age students.
With all factors considered, Reinhardt’s study concludes that Forest Lake Area School District enrollment is not likely to grow in the near future. It could remain stable over the next five years, or it could decline by approximately three hundred students.
As our district looks to a future with fewer students than we served fifteen to twenty years ago, we must begin to reimagine a school system that efficiently and effectively meets the needs of a smaller group of students. At the June 13 school board meeting, the school board began that process. In the coming months, the school board may consider a number of changes for the 2025-2026 school year, such as reconfiguring middle school grades to provide expanded learning opportunities for 6 grade students and reducing the number of elementary schools for improved operational efficiencies. Our district has a network of community-based elementary schools that have become cornerstones in their home communities, and our school board expressed a commitment to maintaining that system. In order to balance population growth in some areas with population decline in others, the board may also need to consider the redesign of elementary school attendance boundaries with a look toward the 2026-2027 school year.
Like all organizations, our school district needs to change along with the community we serve. With our projected population shifts, the district has the opportunity to reimagine what the district should look like as we seek to effectively serve the needs of the Forest Lake Area today and in the future.
Steve Massey is the superintendent of the Forest Lake Area School District.
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