Reply to Waitlist Movement Updates

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Supposedly 5 5th grade spots left at BASIS (130 kids have submitted enrollment paperwork at this point).  [/quote]

Surprised they’re taking that many 5th graders. With the number of kids returning for 9th, that building is going to be stuffed to the gills. [/quote]

They would have known how many are returning before they decided how many 5th grade spots to open up.

I figured instead of reading more DCUM "opinions" on how full the building will or won't be and/or listening to DCUM assume they know more about enrollment patterns and data than a school would, I'd pull up historical data and see what it tells us. A couple of interesting things jump out:

*From 5th to 6th Basis lost 20 students this year. That is more than in the prior 3 years (13,10,14 respectively)
*This year's 6th and 7th grade classes (115 and 110) are smaller than the prior years' (128 and 118) by a combined 21 students
*This year's 8th grade class is the largest since 2017-2018 (92)
*This year's 12th grade class is the largest since 2017-2018 (52)
*This year's total enrollment (650) is down 13 from 20-21 and up 10 from 19-20
*5th grade enrollments for past 4 years are: 129,135,141,144,137

My conclusions are as follows:

1. The data is clear as mud with respect to trend lines and reenrollments. For every grade that has increased retention in one year that falls off in another. People with an agenda or preconceived notion may try and draw conclusions from these moving numbers but I would argue that no data scientist could rely on these numbers as statistically significant to draw any firm conclusions
2. Having said that, it would be truly anomalous for 90 of 92 8th graders to return for 9th grade. That's not a prediction, just an observation. In the last 4 years there have been 18,8,37,32 enrollment decreases from 8th to 9th. To lose only 2 would be a stark change.
3. Even if 90 kids return for 9th and 135 are admitted for 5th, considering the annual average attrition in all grades (but assuming artificially low attrition for 9th), and considering that audited enrollment data historically sheds a few 5th graders between enrollment and count day, the number of total students in the building will be about the same as it this year.

Global conclusion: Basis knows more about their enrollment than random DCUM know-it-alls

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