Historic enrollment makes PRHS the fastest growing county school.
These days walking through the campus of PRHS without bumping into many students might be a little more difficult than last year with a total of 216 more bearcats enrolled.
The numbers of enrollment for this school year have jumped enormously from last year. The enrollment by the end of last year was at 1,939 and currently PRHS is at 2,181 bearcats on campus. Growing at a With the freshman class has a total of 609, sophomore class at 553, junior class at 540, and finally the senior class at 479 students for the 2017-2018 school year. This school year PRHS has been deemed the highest growing school in the county.
With Atascadero High School only going up three students from 1,331 to 1,334 for the 2015-16 to 2016-17.
The San Luis Obispo High School grew 121 students from the school year of 2016-17 to 2017-18. Having a total enrollment of 1,406 last year to now having 1,527 in the current school year.
The amount of new students that have been enrolled into PRHS this has formed a new perspective regarding the way that the school is run.
With a flood of students Principal Eric Martinez had many remarks on how PRHS grew with abundance this school year.
“I believe it is because students and families want to be part of our organization [high school and school district]. We have many passionate educators who are focused on providing opportunities for student success. We also have a wide variety of co and extra curricular activities for students. We have also had great success showcasing our school’s academic accomplishments such as Crimson, Skills USA to name a few, as well as being recognized as a top 10% school in the Nation and as a California Gold Ribbon School.”
Eleven new teachers have been hired to field courses for the enrollment bump. Even with the amount of new staff students still see many of their class rooms filled abnormally large.
“My Precalculus class has 39 students, the class is packed and it’s crazy,” sophomore Audrey Hughes said.
While even students are seeing the effects from the increasing of enrollments, the teachers even can see the enlarging of PRHS from their classes to just watching the crowds.
Locker shortages plagued many seniors This year over 50 seniors did not receive lockers and were not allowed to store their books in their cars. Locker shortages were solved within the first weeks of school by offering a reward for those underclassmen that weren’t using their lockers.
Even though there can be issues like the locker situation there can be many advantages of the enrollment increase for PRHS and the whole district.
“Anytime we have any increase in students it increases the level of diversity on campus. It also provides our programs with the ability to grow in their levels of student participation. Our growth also could mean more additional growth for the district, as siblings could attend our elementary and middle schools. The increase in their numbers could have the same positive effect” Martinez said.
No matter the struggles at first like the locker situation PRHS will always welcome as many new bearcats as possible, because we’re bearcats and that’s what bearcats do.
