Area school districts are experienced relatively small decreases in enrollment, mainly due what school officials are calling the normal movement of people in an out of the district for jobs and other reasons.

Niles Community Schools’ fall count is 3,879 students, while Buchanan is 1,571 and Brandywine 1,349.

Niles saw its enrollment decrease by 40 students, the largest number when compared to the Brandywine and Buchanan school districts. The Niles enrollment was 3,919 last school year.

“We think that we will go up as we get more adults to sign up for adult education, but it is still down 40 kids from a year ago,” said Niles Supt. Michael Lindley.

The dip in enrollment, he said, didn’t come from any one area. It was spread throughout the entire district.

“One here, one there — it adds up,” Lindley said. “We look at who is coming, who is going and where they are going and there’s no particular patterns of any concern. Most of the time it looks like people are leaving for job opportunities or to move in with family. Those kinds of things.”

Buchanan’s enrollment fell 28 students when compared to last year’s fall count of 1,599. By the end of last school year, Buchanan’s enrollment ended at 1,541.

“During the course of last year, we had approximately 25 students who left the high school,” said Buchanan Superintendent Andrea VanderLaan. “This is not unusual and has occurred in similar patterns since I have been the superintendent. The rest of the drops were due to moving to another district/state.”

Buchanan currently has 40 students enrolled in its new virtual high school.

“We were able to offer an alternative type of education to students who might have otherwise dropped out of high school,” she said.

Brandywine’s enrollment decreased by 28 students when compared to the district’s official count in February 2014 of 1,377.

Brandywine Superintendent John Jarpe attributed the drop to families who were in the area last year temporarily working on the Enbridge Pipeline replacement project.

“And we had some students from New Buffalo who were bused to our Alternative Education program last year and they are attending a program in their own district now,” he said.