PRIVATE SCHOOLS & HOME SCHOOLING WCPS is currently tracking twenty-three (23) private schools and their associated enrollments in conjunction with registered home school students in order to address any potential related public school capacity issues. Both private and home school saw significant increases during the 2021-2022 school year due to COVID and this trend has continued. We are closely monitoring as we could see some of this increase shift back to the public school during the coming school years. Private school enrollments during the 2023-2024 school year increased by 65 (see figure 4). The four largest private schools within WCPS attendance areas are (1) Salisbury Christian School with 683 students, (2) The Salisbury School with 381, (3) Wicomico Day School with 320 and (4) St. Francis with 253. While the total combined population in private schools reported for last year was 2,529 or 16.8% of our public school enrollment, any shift from private to public could impact our projected plans. It is important to keep in mind that several private schools can potentially impact our public high school enrollment numbers because the facilities do not provide all 12 years of education (see the Non-Public School Sheet at the end of the enrollments section). These trends can be seen in figure 5. The drop from 4th to 5th grades can be attributed to students going to Delmar, DE for fifth grade. The rise in enrollments from 8th to 9th grade are the students whom leave private schools after middle school. PRIVATE & HOME SCHOOL ANALYSIS 6.2 Figure 5 1954 1819 2239 2440 2529 1800 1900 2000 2100 2200 2300 2400 2500 2600 2019-2020 2020-2021 2021-2022 2022-2023 2023-2024 Private School Population (5 Year Trend) Figure 4 900 950 1,000 1,050 1,100 1,150 1,200 1,250 1,300 k 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Wicomico County Public Schools Class Survival Trends 2014-2026 2015-2027 2016-2028 219
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