SPPS is seeing enrollment growth for the first time in a decade

St. Public Schools Paul notes an encouraging trend. This school year, school enrollment has increased by approximately 400 students compared to last year. This is the first increase in the district’s student population in about a decade.

This year, Riverview Spanish/English Immersion School added an additional kindergarten class with approximately 25 children.

“It’s extremely exciting,” said principal Stivaliss Licona-Gervich.

The West Side Elementary School offers classes in Spanish and English. It also offers a longer study day, allowing students to learn string instruments in the morning through a partnership with the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies.

“I want Riverview to be a place where all our families and all families interested in bilingualism can go,” Licona-Gervich said.

She explained that the increase in student numbers is the result of two years of hard work, which included updating the school’s name to include the “dual immersion” designation to advertise to families the bilingual education it offers. Licona-Gervich also attended community events and visited preschools to recruit families.

“To educate our families about bilingualism and what it does to the brain,” she said. “Not only does it open doors to work or other things, but it really helps you think in different ways, and if you’re bilingual or multilingual, you can explore and experience the world in a completely different way.”

Riverview is one of six schools the district decided to increase enrollment last year using pandemic-era federal funds. According to communications director Erica Wacker, the district took a different approach with its recruitment project, specifically through school marketing.

“Education is a very crowded market,” she said. “Usually, the family chooses not St. Public Schools. “Paul, you pick a school and maybe you have two public schools, maybe a charter school.”

All but one of the schools involved in the initiative saw an increase in student numbers. Riverview, for example, saw a 16% increase in enrollment. Txuj Ci Hmong Language and Culture Upper Campus saw enrollment increases by 48%, Highwood Hills by 16%, Cherokee Heights by 9% and Dayton’s Bluff by 7%. District data, however, shows Hamline Elementary School has seen a 7% decline in enrollment.

“Schools that have received targeted budget, resources and attention to really grow their enrollment and really tell their story are just some of the schools that have seen growth this year,” Wacker said. “The programs that are seeing the most growth are really language and culture programs.”

In addition to the Enrollment Project schools, the East African Magnet school saw a 58% increase in enrollment in its second year.

All data is preliminary pending submission to the Department of Education at the end of the year.

Licona-Gervich hopes to keep the momentum going.

“The West Side is a big part of who I am, it’s a big Latino community, I’m Latina,” she said. “For me, the opportunity to participate in leading this school for our students and our community is an incredible gift.”