At the end of the day, numbers reported to Student Services from individual schools in the district showed an increase in student enrollment for the Dearborn Public Schools. This is the fourth year in a row that the district has had an increase in enrollment and a continuation of a 25 year upward trend that has seen the district go from an all time low of 12,287 students in 1986 to over 18,500 students last year.

The district will not have official numbers until the sixth Wednesday of the year as the total from the October 5 count day will need to be verified with the State of Michigan. Unofficially the district fell just short of the 19,000 enrollment mark with 18,993 students. However, 2% of the students were absent resulting in only 18,614 students in attendance on count day. The district has 10 days to verify if those students were actually absent or no longer attending a Dearborn Public School.

"Once we are able to verify the numbers we will have a more accurate picture and be able to determine if we are 100 students over projection or closer to 400 over," commented Mr. Ron Gutkowski, Assistant Superintendent overseeing the district's Student Services office.

The district has already added teachers at schools where numbers were obviously higher at the start of the year. The administration will continue to evaluate enrollment numbers at each school and will allocate additional resources where needed.

Although there is no definitive way to determine the reason for the increase in enrollment, the district speculates that parents are drawn to Dearborn for a variety of reasons including all day kindergarten, MEAP scores at or above state averages, a variety of programs at all grade levels, quality of instruction, and new offerings such as foreign language in the elementary grades. Other factors include a continued slow economy making private and parochial school tuition unaffordable for families, an increase in affordable housing in the city, and parents seeking the outstanding services found in Dearborn.