AUSTIN, Texas — On Monday, Austin ISD reported another sign that the pandemic is calming down – registrations for pre-K and kindergarten in the next school year have already doubled what they were last spring.
"The district saw the largest decrease in enrollment among pre-K and kindergarten through the pandemic, and this accounted for a large portion of the district failing to meet enrollment expectations," the district said in a press release.
In October of last year, two months after the first day of school, the district was about 1,500 students short of its 10,472 projection in both grades for the 2021-22 school year.
AISD said that last week's Early Learning Day brought in 858 elementary student registrations. Overall, the district said the numbers are even better.
- Pre-K registrations are up 188% compared to 2021.
- Kindergarten registrations are up 123% over the same period.
- That adds up to 2,339 additional students.
“What these numbers tell me is that there is a pent-up demand in Austin coming out of the pandemic for our high-quality pre-K and kindergarten options,” said district enrollment executive director Alejandro Delgado.
AISD is encouraging its current families to register for the next school year by the end of May.
The top five campuses with the most registrations on Early Learning Day were Summit (41), Baldwin (31), Barrington (26), Padron (27) and Pickle (25).
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