PRIVATE SCHOOLS & HOME SCHOOLING WCPS is currently tracking twenty-four (24) 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 until this year. We are closely monitoring the decrease in private school enrollments as this could be tied to the increase seen in public school enrollments. Private school enrollments during the 2024-2025 school year decreased by 120 (see figure 4). The four largest private schools within WCPS attendance areas are (1) Salisbury Christian School with 663 students, (2) The Salisbury School with 380, (3) Wicomico Day School with 286 and (4) St. Francis with 254. While the total combined population in private schools reported for last year was 2,409 or 15.5% 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 who leave private schools after middle school. PRIVATE & HOME SCHOOL ANALYSIS 6.2 Figure 5 Figure 4 1819 2239 2421 2529 2409 1800 1900 2000 2100 2200 2300 2400 2500 2600 2020-2021 2021-2022 2022-2023 2023-2024 2024-2025 Private School Population (5 Year Trend) 800 850 900 950 1000 1050 1100 1150 1200 1250 1300 1350 k 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Wicomico County Public Schools Class Survival Trends 2021 2022 2023 2024 217
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzAyOTMwNA==