News

Bottineau's schools see enrollment go up

By Scott Wagar

09/03/2013

Bottineau Public Schools enrollment has increased from last year with over 40 new students in the school system.

“Our enrollment is up this fall compared to last year at approximately the same time. Our elementary numbers in K-6 have increased by 64 students. Our 7-12 numbers have decreased by 17 students. Our overall numbers K-12 has increased by 47 students,” said Jason Kersten, superintendent of the Bottineau School District.  

“We expected our 7-12 numbers to be down coming into this year. The reason is the number of graduates from last year compared to the number of 6th grade students moving to 7th grade. Last year, we graduated 60 seniors. This year, the 7th grade has 34 students to start the year. This was going to be a decrease of 26 students. So, we have actually gained nine more than what we projected last spring.”

In the fall of 2012, the school district saw 314 in K-6 and 284 students in 7-12, for a total of 598 students.

On Tuesday, the first day of school in Bottineau, K-6 saw 378 students and 7-12 saw 267 students, for a total of 645 students.     

Kersten stated that in his mind the increase in student enrollment is attributed to the oil industry and families moving back to Bottineau for employment reasons.

With the increase of students in the school district, Kersten said that he pleased to see the numbers.

“We are very excited to have all the new faces in our district,” Kersten said. “It is nice to have our enrollment increase instead of decrease.”