Oconee County Schools Reports Its First Drop In October Enrollment Going Back 30 Years

***Drop Is Greater If Only Oconee Residents Counted***

For the first time since at least 1995, Oconee County Schools had a drop in enrollment, based on official school census data for October filed with the Georgia Department of Education.

The enrollment decline is at PK-5 and at the high school levels. Middle school enrollment actually increased last year to this.

The drop in total enrollment would have been greater had not Oconee County Schools had an increase in enrollment of student from outside the county. Oconee County Schools allows employees to enroll their students in the system’s schools without cost.

The enrollment of Oconee County students, which is the basis for state funding under the Quality Basic Education (QBE) formula, is lower than the figure used by Oconee County Schools to project revenue in its approved Fiscal Year 2025 budget.

Oconee County Schools administrators have reported that all of the 12 schools in the system are under capacity and students can pick a school of their choice for next year through open enrollment, but administrators have not reported publicly on this year’s enrollments.

Steven Colquitt, Director of Communications for Oconee County Schools who also serves as the Open Records Officer for the system, released the enrollment data late on Friday afternoon in response to an Open Records Request.

Details Of Data

Oconee County Schools enrolled 8,474 students across all grade levels on Oct. 1, 2024, the first Tuesday of the month, based on the data it filed with the Georgia Department of Education.

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Oct. 3, 2023, the first Tuesday of that month last year, Oconee County Schools reported the enrollment of 8,535 students.

The decline of 61 students resulted from a drop of 85 students at the PK-5 level, an increase of 65 students at the middle school level, and a decrease of 41 students at the high school level.

Last year, Oconee County Schools had reported an increase of only four students, and the decrease of 61 students this year is the first drop in enrollment going back to 1995, based on data available from the Georgia Department of Education.

In that first year of reported data–from 1994 to 1995, Oconee County Schools saw a growth of enrollment of 196 students, and enrollment increases averaged 151.8 students per year from 1995 to 2018.

In the last six years–since 2018–average enrollment has been half that, or 75.8 students per year.

Over those last six years, enrollment grew 455 students, with growth of 42 students at the PK-5 level, 42 students at the middle school level, and 210 students at the high school level.

Out Of System Enrollments

One of the documents Oconee County Schools must file with the state is called a System of Residency Report, classifying all students as a Resident of Local School District or Non-Resident.

On Oct. 1 of this year, 91 of the students enrolled in Oconee County Schools were not residents of Oconee County.

This in an increase from 76 students in the October 2023 report and from 56 in October of 2022.

Beginning last year, Oconee County Schools allowed the children of employees who live outside the county to attend Oconee County Schools tuition free as a recruitment and retention incentive.

Prior to that time, employees who lived outside the county had to pay tuition if they enrolled their children in Oconee County Schools.

The Non-Resident Students in October of 2024 included 51 at the PK-5 level, 25 at the Middle School level, and 15 in the system’s two high schools.

Without the Non-Resident Students, Oconee County Schools enrollment on Oct. 1, 2024, would have been 8,383 students, down from 8,549 a year earlier, or a decline of 76 students.

In 2022, the number of Oconee County Resident student was 8,475, meaning that enrollment of Oconee County Resident students has declined in both of the last two years–by 16 students last year and by 76 this year.

Announcements Of Enrollments

In the past, school administrators have reported on enrollments at Board meetings, usually based on a census as the school began.

At its Sept. 11, 2023, meeting, for example, Dallas LeDuff, then Associate Superintendent of Oconee County Schools, reported to the Board the student counts on the fourth Wednesday of each school year going back to the 2013-2014 school year.

At the Oct. 7 Board meeting this year, Kevin Yancey, Director of Student Services, as part of his Student Services Report, said applications for school choice will be available on Nov. 22.

Yancey said that there is sufficient capacity throughout the system and that “this year all 12 schools are available for public school choice,” but he gave no report on actual enrollments.

The number of full-time equivalent (FTE) students is a crucial part of budgeting, since it determines the level of state funding, and the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget approved by the Board included a projected enrollment of 8,451 students, producing $57.5 million in state funding revenue.

That student FTE projection is based on Resident Students, so the actual number of enrolled Resident students at 8,383 is 68 fewer than projected in the budget.

School Capacities And Enrollments

Based on the Oct. 1, 2024, enrollment, Oconee County Schools has a capacity of 4,875 students at the PK-5 level and on Oct. 1 had 3,713 students enrolled, or an open capacity of 1,162 students.

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All of the Primary and Elementary schools have unused capacity, ranging from a high of 207 at Dove Creek Elementary School to a low of 146 at Oconee County Primary School.

The three Oconee County Schools middle schools have a capacity of 3,000 students, but only 2,016 students are enrolled at those three schools, for an unused capacity of 984.

Both the new Dove Creek Middle School and Malcom Bridge Middle School are operating at about half capacity, while Oconee County Middle school is 60 students below capacity.

Both of the county’s high schools have a capacity of 1,500 students.

North Oconee High School, with 1,432 students, is 68 students under capacity, while Oconee County High School is 187 students under capacity.

Overall, the county has unused capacity for 255 students at the high school level.

Neighboring Systems, Private Schools, Home Schooling

Clarke County Schools also reported a decrease in enrollments on Oct. 1, according to data reported to the Georgia Department of Education.

The decline was from 12,331 students to 12,275 students, or a drop of 56 students.

Barrow County Schools reported an increase of 36 students, from 15,277 to 15,313.

Jackson County Schools reported a growth of 636 students, from 10,524 to 11,160.

Jefferson City Schools reported a growth of 125 students, from 4,169 to 4,294.

Private Schools also are required to file enrollments reports with the state, but those data are not yet available from the Georgia Department of Education.

Data on Home School Declarations of Intent also are not yet available.

Open Records Requests

I filed an open records requests with Oconee County Schools on Oct. 16 asking for a copy of the complete October enrollment report for October filed by Oconee County Schools with the Georgia Department of Education.

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Colquitt, Director of Communications and Open Records Officer for Oconee County Schools, told me after the Board of Education meeting on Oct. 21 that the deadline for filing that report had been delayed because of Hurricane Helene.

Colquitt sent me an email on Oct. 22 stating again that “the deadline for submitting the enrollment report is being extended due to Hurricane Helene's impact on several districts in the state. If you will reach out to me in the next week or so, I can provide an update.”

I responded that same day and said that “If OCS has filed its report already, or has its report ready to be filed, please provide that to me at this point.”

When Colquitt did not respond, I wrote on Oct. 24, repeating my request, and including sections of the Georgia Open Records Act that stipulate that the law defines a public record as “all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes, photographs, computer based or generated information, data, data fields, or similar material prepared and maintained or received by an agency or by a private person or entity in the performance of a service or function for or on behalf of an agency or when such documents have been transferred to a private person or entity by an agency for storage or future governmental use.”

I wrote that the law further states that “an agency's use of electronic record-keeping systems must not erode the public's right of access to records under this article. Agencies shall produce electronic copies of or, if the requester prefers, printouts of electronic records or data from data base fields that the agency maintains using the computer programs that the agency has in its possession.”

I copied that email to Superintendent Jason Branch and members of the Board of Education.

I received a response from Colquitt the following day saying “There are no records responsive to your request.”

Data Released By State

At 11:11 a.m. on Nov. 6, I wrote again to Colquitt via email saying that “I have checked with the GADOE and know that they are pulling together the state enrollment data at present. So I believe you have filed the reports I requested. I am asking for them once again.”

At 11:53 a.m. on Nov. 6, I email Colquitt again stating that “The Georgia Department of Education has now released the October enrollment report data file” and asked that he provide on that day “the reports that I requested initially on Oct. 16.”

At 5 p.m. on Nov. 7, Colquitt wrote me saying: “Good afternoon. This serves as confirmation of your email received by my office on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. Your email was a request for information about enrollment under the Georgia Open Records Act and is in accordance with the three-day period of response pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 50-18-71(b)(2). Since Oconee County Schools does not keep requests open, this is being listed as a new request. With respect to your request, I will reach out to departments where responsive records may exist so that we can prepare search, retrieval, review, and production time/cost estimates. I anticipate having an update for you by Monday, Nov. 11, 2024.”

I responded at 7:40 p.m. saying “This is a truly ridiculous response. You know I have been asking you for these reports since Aug. 16. (I had mistyped. It was Oct. 16.) You told me to check back with you until you were ready to provide these to me. I have done that. Now you are telling me that my checking and asking repeatedly meant nothing and you are treating my request as a new open records request. There is no reason why any public employee should treat a legitimate citizen request for a document produced at taxpayer expense this way.”

I copied Branch and the Board members and asked them to intervene. I also followed up with Board members Kim Argo, Amy Parrish, Michael Ransom, and Ryan Hammock, for whom I had personal email addresses, asking them to help.

At 10:19 p.m. on Nov. 7, Argo, who is Board Chair, wrote back to me saying “I am including Dr. Branch and Mr. Colquitt on this email requesting that the information that you have requested will be forwarded to you.”

At 4 p.m. on Nov. 8, Colquitt sent me the Student Residence Report, the Student Enrollment by School Report, and the Student Enrollment by Grade Report.

All show transmission to the Georgia Department of Education at 9:26:02 a.m. on Oct. 28, 2024, and time stamps from Richard Woods, State Superintendent of Schools, of 10:43 and 10:45 a.m. on that date.