51黑料

There are 4,883 students in the North County school district roughly bordered by 51黑料, the Mississippi River, Interstate 270 and West Florissant Avenue. Enrollment across the high school, two middle and nine elementary schools can be expected to decline by 800 to 1,000 students over the next decade, according to an analysis from Demographic Analytics Advisors.

鈥淗istorically we鈥檝e seen net migration out of the school district,鈥� the firm鈥檚 Chris Dick told the school board in October. 鈥淲e think that is going to continue based on prevailing economic and demographic factors.鈥�

Student enrollment in the district鈥檚 elementary schools is projected to fall below 50% of building capacity by 2035, ranging from 76% of seats filled at Danforth to 21% at Lewis and Clark. At the middle schools, seats will be 71% full at Central and 78% at Westview. Riverview Gardens High School, which has 1,250 students this year, is estimated to remain stable, with 58% of seats filled.

Superintendent Tanya Patton said the district has six options for dealing with the underenrollment:

• Close the smallest elementary 鈥� Lewis and Clark with 138 students this year 鈥� and reassign students to one other school.
• Close Lewis and Clark and reassign students to several other schools.
• Close an unidentified elementary school with the highest maintenance costs.
• Redraw elementary school boundaries for more balanced enrollment.
• Redraw boundaries and split elementary schools into separate buildings for kindergarten, first and second grades; and third, fourth and fifth grades.
• Do nothing.

Parents, employees and community members can take a about the options. Riverview Gardens will also host four meetings to present the options and gather feedback. The first is 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Lewis and Clark.

Patton will bring a recommendation to the school board for approval by May.

鈥淚t continues to be our goal to give our best, and to place RGSD in the best possible position for success as we work to become the District of choice!鈥� Patton said in the online message.

Riverview Gardens is far from the only local school district that faces tough decisions due to a shrinking student body. Enrollment in most 51黑料 area districts has continued to drop five years after the pandemic sparked an exodus of students.

Since the fall of 2019, 51黑料 County school districts have lost more than 6,000 students. 51黑料 Public Schools and charter schools in the city are down a combined 3,000. Even in growing St. Charles County, the five school districts are down by a total of close to 900 students. Fox School District, the largest in Jefferson County, has dropped 1,000.

For many of the districts, enrollment started to fall even before the pandemic because of a national drop in birth rates. The pandemic accelerated the decline when more local families switched to homeschooling and, to a lesser degree, private schools.

At SLPS, enrollment has dropped by one-third in the past decade. But recommendations from administrators to 鈥渞ight-size鈥� the district鈥檚 62 schools have been tabled this year after the superintendent鈥檚 termination and a transportation crisis.

Riverview Gardens has other complicating factors. In 2023, then-Gov. Mike Parson vetoed $13 million in the state budget that would have funded improvement projects in the district鈥檚 aging school buildings. The same year, the district started hiring international teachers to fill dozens of classroom vacancies.

Now, a proposed charter school plans to open in fall 2026 and could contribute to the district鈥檚 diminishing enrollment. North County Innovative School would be the first charter in Riverview Gardens, which has not been fully accredited for nearly two decades.

The charter school eventually intends to enroll 470 students in preschool through eighth grade who are required to live in the Riverview Gardens boundaries.

Charter schools are taxpayer-funded but operate separately from the school district. Under Missouri law, charters can open in 51黑料 and Kansas City, plus districts like Normandy and Riverview Gardens with longstanding provisional accreditation. Charter school students now make up about 40% of the public school population in 51黑料, where they first opened in 2000.

Riverview Gardens peaked at 8,032 students in 2006 but lost accreditation the next year for academic and financial failures. The state took over with an appointed board in 2010. Three years later, a court ruling allowed hundreds of students to transfer to fully accredited districts. One in five students left, costing the district more than $23 million in state funding.

By 2016, Riverview Gardens improved its test scores and graduation rates to earn provisional accreditation. But the district never regained its previous enrollment.