Changes in Northview enrollment

Northview highlights its fine arts department for increased enrollment

Design by Shadi Karimifard & Anya Surani

Anya Biswas, Features Editor & Anya Surani, Staff Writer

As the academic years progress, there is a developing trend at Northview and surrounding schools across the district: a noticeable decline in school enrollment. From class sizes decreasing at River Trail Middle School, the housing market shifting, or Innovation Academy attracting Northview students, the reasons behind the dropping numbers are prompting questions. 

As the bustling halls of Northview start to quiet down, it only serves as a reminder of the school's population dwindling. Zone Superintendent Brian Downey and Northview’s Principal Martin Neuhaus keep a record of the trend of student enrollment and their implications. 

“It's important for us to track that because we wanted to make sure that we have the right number of teachers in the right number of classrooms so we can serve our kids,” Downey said. 

Many attribute the lack of enrollment over the past year to Innovation Academy, a new public STEM magnet school. However, delving deeper beyond the surface reveals that the true reason is due to the housing markets of Johns Creek.

“We were adding lots of schools as the population of Fulton County Schools was expanding very quickly. [Because] we've kind of reached that capacity, there's no more developments or there's very few developments, ” Neuhaus said. 

With high economic prices and interest rates, many individuals are deciding not to move or sell their houses since they cannot afford this housing market. As a result, the aging population who once attended school here are now becoming college students and/or are working while still residing in their childhood homes. As the population stays stagnant and does not sell their houses, there is little opportunity for new generations of students to enroll at Northview. 

As new schools open up, such as Innovation Academy, the already limited population has more choices for high school. Innovation Academy takes students from Northview, about 40 students per grade. Unlike Northview, Innovation Academy offers three pathways: engineering, information technology, and healthcare science. Northview, however, offers over 13 pathways. 

“We're adding a mental health pathway this year. It's brand new in the state of Georgia,” Neuhaus said.

Northview staff designed a new pathway chart to make it clear to parents and students of opportunities unique to Northview. Mason Copeland, the department chair of the Fine Arts Department, values the arts and finds them essential to building character.

“Whereas playing in an ensemble, it's beautiful to sing a melody by yourself, but it's incredible to make harmony with others and come together [to] create something beautiful,” Copeland said.

With Northview’s inclusion of pathways such as the fine arts pathway, it is giving students an opportunity to learn and hone the skill they are most interested in. Senior Riley Schmidt was able to make use of the Fine Arts Pathway, as it allowed her to take the classes in the field she was interested in during her time at Northview. Schmidt chose to take Photography I, II, and III, Jewelry Making I and II, and even AP Photography. She has now completed the certification for her Fine Arts Diploma Seal and has a distinctive graduation cord. 

“Since a young age, I've always been into the arts, specifically photography. Coming to Northview and being able to take that class, it was something I wanted to do,” Schmidt said.

In two years, Fulton County Schools will implement a new policy stating that if a public school is less than 95% of student capacity, the county will deem the school to be an open enrollment school so families outside the area can apply to attend this open enrollment school as long as they live in Fulton County.

“[The policy] is empowering our families to have more choices. From a global perspective, we want that, but from a local school level, that can also be a pain point,” Downey said.

Since funding stems from enrollment numbers, teachers are the first to be directly affected. The number of students not only affects the variety of classes offered but also burdens the remaining teachers with other classes.

“When you have declining enrollments, you're going to have to make some hard choices,” Downey said. “With declining enrollment comes a declining staff; declining staff comes with declining options.”

With fewer teachers, it is harder to find coaches for sports and sponsors for school clubs. However, there are some positives about having a smaller student body. Regarding sports, it leads to less competition, opening up new chances for students to play sports and make teams in high school. There will be the same number of clubs and a student council will still exist - but now, there will be fewer people to compete with for those spots. Northview offers a large variety of classes, so with a smaller student body, each class will have fewer students and a closer student-to-teacher ratio. Since the six-minute transition time has stayed the same, having fewer people crowded in the hallways makes the traffic flow faster. Furthermore, there is no need for portable classrooms at Northview which would have provided further complications in class changes and scheduling.

“Ultimately, I think [this trend] is a great opportunity for students to take advantage of the more we have. And our commitment is to offer the same level of courses. So you know, you have the opportunity after school and you have the opportunity during the school day,” Neuhaus said.