Student enrollment is down this school year throughout most of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District — but not at Corona del Mar High School or at Harbor View Elementary School, according to district and school officials.
Harbor View had about 30 or 40 more kindergartners enter the school this week, with a total student body of 460 students, up about 30 from last year. And at Corona del Mar Middle and High schools, there are more than 400 students in five of the six classes, said Karen Yelsey, president of the Board of Education. Yelsey attended the CDMHS’s first PTA meeting of the year, which drew more than 100 parents to the school’s small gym on Wednesday morning.
About 100 new students entered the high school this year, she said, with about 30 to 50 entering the Middle School, above last year’s enrollment.
All student enrollment figures need to be verified before district officials can provide accurate student body counts, and that process takes about a week, she said.
One parent asked if enrollment rose throughout the district, and Yelsey said it was not a districtwide trend.
“Did everyone move down to Corona del Mar? I don’t know,” she said.
District spokeswoman Laura Boss this afternoon said that Harbor View was one of four elementary schools that have more students this year, and Newport Harbor High School also has a larger student population, along with CdMHS. As far as final numbers?
“We continue to wait and see,” she said.
The number of students enrolling in the CdM middle and high schools this year contributed to the long lines at registration in late August, said Middle School Principal Guy Olguin. (Read our story here.)
“Certainly we had some long registration lines,” he said. “We had more kids than we had before.”
Gary Almquist, the high school’s ASB director, promised that “registration will go 1,000 times smoother next year.”
“We’ve already discussed 25 different ways to make it happen,” he said. “That’s my guarantee.”
The schools have launched an online ASB shop that would let students or their parents buy items like locks and P.E. clothes online and pick them up at school, and there will be more cashiers at registration in the future, they said.
“Parents hopefully won’t have to wait in line at all,” Olguin said.
Some parents asked about the shortage of desks and lockers, all of which school officials are trying to resolve, Olguin said.
The two-hour meeting included chances for volunteer sign-ups as well as information about the Oct. 26 Corona del Mar Home Tour.
Select staff members also were introduced, including Athletic Director Don Grable, who said the school has a new surf team this year. He also said that last year, all 22 of the school’s sports teams had an average, unweighted grade point average of 3.0 or higher, an accomplishment recognized by the CIF, or California Interscholastic Federation.
“We were the only school which had every team recognized,” he said.
There will be a Middle School PTA meeting at 9 a.m. Sept. 15 in room 406.
