About 500 more Prince William County students are enrolled in the English as a Second Language program than expected this year, which could further strain a county budget that has been hit hard in recent months.
Enrollment in Prince William Public Schools rose by more than 1,000 students this year, 336 more than projected for the school year, said county schools spokesman Ken Blackstone.
The total enrollment is 73,657, compared with 72,654 last year.
Blackstone called the projection “extremely accurate,” as the difference reflected less than 0.5 percent of the total student population.
The ESOL numbers, however, could prove difficult for the schools to deal with.
The total student enrollment in the program decreased by 279 students this school year, from 13,409 to 13,130. However, because the figure had decreased by 718 from Sept. 30, 2007, to April 1, the county budgeted for 12,603 students this year.
The cost per pupil in Prince William in fiscal 2008 was $10,429, according to the Washington Area Boards of Education, and County Executive Craig Gerhart has asked county agencies to prepare for budget cuts of up to 33 percent.
“Certainly, this is not helpful coming on top of what else we’re faced with,” said Don Richardson, Gainesville’s representative for the county school board, though he said the numbers did not surprise him.
Blackstone said 50 or 60 languages are represented among county ESOL students, but the vast majority come from Spanish-speaking backgrounds.
“We’ll have to adjust,” he said. “It’s a function of our budgeting process to adjust.”
Nancy Lyall of Mexicans Without Borders said that many ESOL students are U.S. citizens, so the crackdown on illegal immigrants would have had less of an effect on those students.
“It might be the fact that the housing crisis is truly low now — homes are going for a quarter of what they usually would,” she said, adding that the reversal in ESOL enrollment was “perplexing.”
