Schools open

By Barbara Brown
The first week of school got off to a good start, administrators told North Branch school board members last Thursday night.
North Branch High School principal Dr. Michael Trok said at the Sept. 11 meeting that the school opened with 1,141 students.
He said the count is still a ìsoft numberî and that it will fluctuate over the next few weeks.
The count at each of the school buildings is most important on or about Oct. 1 when the number of pupils in the school will be used in state calculations for funding.
ìIt will change,î Dr. Trok said, ìbecause there is always a lot of settling at the beginning of the year of students coming in and going out.î
The count for the high school on Oct. 1 last year was 1,093.
At the middle school, staff and administration will have to keep up with 1,160 students. Last yearís Oct. 1 count for the middle school was 1,115.
That number includes 75 new students from the United States, Canada and other parts of the country.
Primary School office staff said all class sizes are up, but close to projections.
Primary School had 787 students in first, second and third grades as of last week, down 23 from the projection given prior to the beginning of school. Last yearís Oct. 1 count for the primary school was 744.
The Main Street School has 463 students with 267 in kindergarten and 196 in fourth grade.
The intermediate site has 315 students. The count last Oct. 1 was 484 for the Main Street School and 337 for the intermediate site.
The Alternative Learning Center had 69 students start the school year, although that number has dropped since then due to disciplinary issues, said Lori Zimmerman.
There are 470 special education students in the district this year, according to a report offered by Jan Ashlin, special education director.
The greatest number of those is in the high school where there are 166 special education students.
The number of students served in special education programs ranged in each school from 66 in the Primary, 69 in Main Street, 25 at the Intermediate Site, 129 at the Middle School and 12 at both the Alternative Learning Center and Northgate Campus.
Ashlin told the board that the number seems to spike at the high school level because some students are not diagnosed with a learning need early enough.
She also said complicating factors like additional stresses can lead to a need for additional help in school work. She said a lot of those stresses and signs are not spotted until the high school years.
North Branch schools have 86 English as a second language students with the greatest primary languages being Hmong and Spanish.
The languages spoken in the district are Chinese, Hmong, Korean, Lao, Oromo, Spanish, Swahili, Swiss German and Vietnamese.
Migrant students number 18 for the district.
There are two exchange students in the district this year, one from Argentina and the other from Korea.

At Rush City schools, more than 70 new students registered with the district for the school year.
At the elementary school, 43 new students were registered. Kindergarten had 61 students, first grade had 75 students, second grade had 66 students.
There were 62 students in third grade, 70 fourth-graders, 82 in fifth grade and 75 sixth-graders.
Last year at the end of the year, 503 students went to C.E. Jacobson Elementary.
The schoolís sixth-grade class from last year was ìvery largeî according to office staff and the kindergarten class coming in this year did not equal it, resulting in 491 students registered at the school this school year.
According to Rush City High School staff, 479 students were registered in grades 7 to 12 for this school year.
Of those, 30 students were new to the district.

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