Cedar Rapids school enrollment numbers highlight more students living in poverty

CEDAR RAPIDS –  Of the 16,065 students enrolled in the Cedar Rapids school district in 2010-11, 44.5 percent qualify for the free and reduced-price lunch program.

The federal free and reduced-lunch program defines student poverty. Cedar Rapids' participation in the program is at its highest. In the past decade, the number of students participating in the program has increased from 27.6 percent in 2001-02.

But those are just the district numbers. Broken down further, the percentage of elementary students enrolled in the program is 50.2 percent this year, up from 33.7 percent in 2001-02.

About 45 percent of the district's middle school students participate in the program, compared to 36.7 percent. The high school percentage is lower, 36.3 percent this year, but that is still higher than 2001-02, when the percentage was 18.9 percent.

Sandy Stephen, the district's executive administrator of secondary education, said participation decreases as students age because they aren't as willing to be associated with the program. Because of this. Superintendent Dave Benson said the elementary percentages are the most accurate numbers for the district as a whole.

District administrators have mentioned the district's growing number of students living at the poverty level several time this school year. At Monday night's school board meeting, they reviewed the big picture citing the 2010-11 enrollment  data. Here's what the numbers say:

• The district had 17,366 students in 2001-02. The total is 16,065 today.
• The number of elementary students in the district is 7,341 this year, compared to 8,028 in 2001-02.
• There are 3,549 middle school students this year. The total was 3,943 in 2001-02.
• The district  has 5,175 high school students this year, compared to 5,395 in 2001-02.
• The district minority population has increased from 14.6  percent 10 years ago to 25 percent this year.
• The number of students open enrolling out of the district has increased from 631.6 in 2001-02 to 860.9 this year.
• The number of student open enrolling into the district also has fallen. This year, 431.2 students open enrolled into Cedar Rapids schools. In 2001-02, the number was 482.7.

The numbers presented were collected by the district during the official head count on Oct. 1, 2010. They include alternative kindergarten through 12

Preschool students weren't included in the totals. Neither were dual enrolled or shared time students.

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-grade students, as well as special education students through age 24.