Declining enrollment is top concern of school board

Downey Unified Superintendent Dr. John Garcia at last Friday’s State of the Schools event. Photo courtesy Downey Unified

DOWNEY — Downey Unified School District Superintendent Dr. John Garcia announced plans last Friday to increase student enrollment over the next several years.

Garcia made the announcement during his State of the Schools address last Friday 5 at the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

The presentation was given by Garcia, who opened with some of the accomplishments of the district within the last year. These included the continued success of Stauffer and Warren Robotics teams, the renaming of the Carnival of Champions to honor late administrator Dale Lostetter, and the inaugural Stauffer Foundation Robo Olympics, as well as the announcement that an application has been submitted for the All District Marching Band to participate in the 2020 Rose parade.

Garcia also highlighted the recent achievements and national recognition of Griffiths and Stauffer Middle Schools.

“When we talk about ‘what are we doing in Downey Unified,’ and ‘We are on the map,’ and we talk about globally competitive and citizens of strong character, two of our middle schools were named ‘Middle Schools to Watch,’ not just for the state of California, but for the United States of America,” said Garcia. “Our schools are on the map.”

Garcia also took time to compare the recent graduation rates of DUSD and other local districts, offering a statistic of a 95.4 percent graduation rate in Downey for the 2016-17 school year.

Warren High School Band and Color Guard Director David Niemeyer was also named Teacher of the Year during the morning’s address.

Warren High’s David Niemeyer was named Teacher of the Year. Photo courtesy Downey Unified School District

“I always like to recognize this because every research study that’s ever been done will tell you that the most important factor in student achievement – the most important thing for kids is a highly effective teacher,” said Garcia. “This year our teacher of the year is the band director who runs an amazing program…truly, it’s been inspired by David Niemeyer and the work he’s doing at Warren High School.”

Niemeyer said it was an “honor and a privilege” to receive the Teacher of the Year recognition.

“I don’t know how I was picked among a thousand amazing teachers; I don’t have half the teaching skills they do,” said Niemeyer. “I graduated from Washington State University in December of 2002. Six months later I was handed the keys to the Warren band room. I was taking over for a guy named Dr. Holiday…his quote to me as I took over was, ‘I feel like I’m handing the keys over to a brand-new sports car to you.’ It wasn’t hard for me to come in and do a good job because Dr. Holiday had done a phenomenal job.”

“Not only did I fill those shoes, but I grew those shoes…We’ve grown the jazz programs to two full jazz programs instead of one. We now have two competitive percussion ensembles when there was none before. We now offer AP Music Theory as often as enrollment allows when there was none before. And as the Warren Band and Booster Program, we continue to service Southern California music education through hosting band competitions.

“We continue to host the Fall Band Spectacular and the Spring Band Spectacular, where all six secondary schools get together and perform music together. In 2011 the marching band of Warren High school turned a corner competitively, and we started placing in the top three in our division…last year we finally made it to the top winning the gold medal in division 4A.

“Our students are greeted by other bands with admiration. We have brought a spotlight to the Downey Unified School District through our music program.”

Niemeyer also took time to highlight the newly established Downey Unified All District Marching Band.

“Recently a new vision has become a reality - and that is the Downey Unified All District Marching Band – with the blessing and the help of Phil Davis and of course Dr. Mary R. Stauffer,” said Niemeyer. “We had a 420-member marching band rehearse in November and then march in the Downey Holiday Parade…The future goal of this ensemble is to do things like the Rose Parade, the Macy’s [Thanksgiving] Day Parade, Presidential inauguration parades; something that students wouldn’t normally do at their school site per say. As you can see, we’re trying to bring a global spotlight to the Downey Unified School District through music.”

The big news, however, came in the form of the districts attempt to combat declining enrollment rates.

A slide at last week’s State of the Schools showed student enrollment numbers. Photo by Eric Pierce

According to Garcia, enrollment rates have been a point of concern not only in Downey, but other school districts as well.

“In the last couple of years, we’ve been declining in our enrollment, as are most districts in the area,” said Garcia.

Garcia said that the decline boiled down to two factors.

“People are having less children; that is just a societal fact,” said Garcia. “The second the is the cost of housing and where it is is pushing a lot of people inland for housing, so that creates some issues in relationship to our enrollment because we’re funded on our enrollment.”

“Five years ago, in ‘13-14 we were a little under 23,000, so we know we can handle 23,000 students in our schools” said Garcia. “We’ve been steadily dropping since then.”

To combat this trend, Garcia said that the Board of Education has aimed to increase enrollment back to 23,000 by 2020-21.

Garcia stated that through marketing efforts and other information campaigns, that decline has already started to stabilize this year, however the district is still projected to be in decline in the 2019-20 school year.

“It will have an impact on the ability to run certain programs in our district,” said Garcia. “We’re really aggressively continuing to recruit, attract, and retain as many students as we possibly can.”

Garcia asked for the help of those in attendance to spread word of “the amazing things happening in our district.”

“What we want you to do is just tell three people,” said Garcia. “Let them know that we are absolutely welcoming and opening…give us an opportunity and they will not regret it.”