It’s no surprise that enrollment at Fountain Hills Unified School District is down once again this year but, according to Superintendent Dr. Patrick Sweeney, the cut was not as large as expected.

Sweeney informed the FHUSD Governing Board during the Aug. 10 regular meeting that enrollment figures at the start of the 2016-17 academic year were actually encouraging.

Each year, one of the easiest ways to determine what enrollment will look like for the coming school year is to compare the graduating class to the number of students expected to enroll for kindergarten. If the students going out outnumber the students coming in by a sound margin, enrollment is expected to go down.

Last school year, as has been common in FHUSD over the past several years, it was determined that the graduating class of 2016 outnumbered the expected newcomers to the district by about 70 students.

Once students actually got in the classroom during the first week of school, however, Sweeney said that it was discovered that the dip in enrollment was not as low as expected.

“We’re lower than last year, which we expected, but we’re higher than we thought we were going to be,” Sweeney said. “We’re about 30 kids higher than we thought we were going to be.”

Last year, FHHS graduated about 142 seniors while only 75 kindergarteners were expected to enroll. That created the expected gap in enrollment of 67 students. In other words, first week findings are that the dip is a little over half of that original forecast.

“What’s very interesting to me is that we’ve added 12 seniors this year,” Sweeney said. “We’re actually up from what we expected at eight grade levels.”

The most significant change this school year is in the sixth grade, where FHUSD is up 22 students from the previous school year.

“What [Four Peaks/Middle School Principal] Anita Gomez has told me is that there are people moving into town,” Sweeney said. “I hope that’s a sign of other things to come here.

“Overall, I’m pleased with the enrollment. Being up 30 from what we thought we would be, well, that’s really good.”