District 203 enrollment mirrors projections

Five weeks into the new school year, Naperville Unit District 203’s enrollment figures closely mirror projections, Superintendent Dan Bridges said.

Administrators projected 17,285 students would be attending school in the district, and as of Friday, 17,254 actually were.

Kitty Ryan, assistant superintendent for elementary education, said the accurate projections allowed the district to allocate staffing and resources wisely across all schools.

This is the third year the district has been offering enrollment at one centralized location instead of at each building. Ryan said 1,876 students in kindergarten through 12th grade enrolled for the first time this year, and enrollment staff verified the residency of 453 students including those whose families’ leases expired or who updated their addresses.

Naperville North High School has the most students of any of the district’s 22 buildings with 3,051. The largest junior high, Kennedy, has 950 students, and Elmwood comes in as the largest elementary school with 630 students enrolled.

Before the peak enrollment period for next year comes around, Ryan said staff members will recruit and train more part-time workers, design a process to better track expired leases so residency can be updated year-round, investigate translation options for parents who speak languages other than English and Spanish, and work to shorten wait times for certain complicated enrollment processes.