By John Raffel
Private schools are facing the challenge of keeping up their enrollment numbers. Those numbers also affect the size of the talent pool the schools can attract for their athletics.
For some schools, a decline in enrollment can seriously impact their future. Michigan Lutheran Seminary athletic director David Lecker indicated that enrollment has stayed about the same in recent years. Five years ago, enrollment dipped to about 190 students, but last year was about 240. “We are currently at 230 with a big senior class, so next year we may drop,” he said. “When we bottomed out, it was a time when our synod was talking about closing us. After our synod voted to keep us open, we shot up. Now I think it is just a matter of the number of students coming to MLS from our feeder schools a little. We have found that the trend is the same in our elementary schools.”
But Lecker sees no impact from his school’s enrollment situation to the athletic program numbers, and he remains optimistic about the future. “We still have a high percentage of our students participating in athletics. I think we may level off at about 220 to 230,” he said. “I don’t worry about our program, because our history is a high level of participation.”
Kurt Hofmeister, the athletic director/dean of students for Valley Lutheran, said enrollment has been about the same, ranging from 330 to 360 students over the last 10 years. “Our enrollment is closely linked to the local Lutheran elementary schools that have students planning on coming to Valley or not,” he said. “It’s pretty much the same story at the elementary level, meaning their enrollments have declined in recent years.”
Hofmeister said his program’s athletic numbers have remained fairly steady. “We have not had to drop any teams, and our football numbers are actually up a bit this year,” he said. “The football example is a result of more freshmen boys enrolled this school year. Our athletic numbers have remained stable.”
Hofmeister does not expect the school and athletic program numbers to drop. “I believe we will remain pretty steady. Most of our students are used to participating at their local Lutheran grade school in sports such as volleyball, soccer, basketball, and track, so they continue here at Valley Lutheran. We have no long-term plans to drop or add a sports team. We’re probably at our maximum offering without having other sports suffer.”
Valley Lutheran co-ops with Saginaw Arts & Sciences Academy for football. “That helps our numbers on some years,” Hofmeister said. “We are part of a three-way co-op agreement with Nouvel and Freeland for hockey, which give our students an opportunity Valley Lutheran could not do by itself.”
The story is good at Sacred Heart Academy, where Rick Roberts said enrollment is up about 30 students this year. “We have done a fantastic job of marketing our school,” he said, citing radio and television ads as among the key reasons for the rise. “Student increase is all across the board. Our participation numbers have increased. We will have freshmen and JV teams this year that we didn’t have last year.
“Our marketing committee, consisting of administrators, teachers, parents, and students, continues to work very hard at finding ways to inform potential families of all the positive outcomes of enrolling at Sacred Heart Academy,” Roberts said.