Student enrollment this year for the six schools within the Dowagiac Union School district exceeded expectations, according to a report during this month’s School Board meeting Monday night.

Enrollment for this school year, which begin in September, is 2,337 students, said Mark Daniels, the district’s Superintendent. The administration originally anticipated an enrollment count of 2,261 students, so the actual enrollment numbers beat the estimate by over 3 percent.

“We are very pleased by these numbers,” Daniels said.

One concern that the board had over these recent enrollment figures were over students enrolled at Union High School, particularly those in 9th and 10th grade. However, neither of these classes have seen a notable decline in enrollment, Daniels said.

“We’re not seeing a significant drop in our 10th grade numbers, which is very good,” he said. “We attribute that to our what our teachers are doing, especially our freshmen academic teachers. We think that program is definitely impacting our student’s continuing into 10th grade, and there’s nothing but positiveness coming out of that program.”

One particular area that saw a boost in enrollment was in the district’s alternative education program. Last year, only 20 people participated in the program. That number has more than doubled since then, Daniels said.

“We would still like to see that higher,” he added. “There’s still room for improvement.”

In addition, Dawn Conner, the Deputy Superintendent, presented to the board the latest assessments her office has been conducting on student performance. According to the results, proficiency in reading and English has steadily improved since 2009, with this year’s numbers beating the state average. In addition, the average scores in the ACT EXPLORE and ACT assessment tests, which is administered to 8th grade students, both improved over last year’s numbers.

The board was also given a number of proposed policy changes, which were updated to make them more in line with updated state laws. Among those on the docket are changes to rules concerning bullying and anti-harassment. The board will decide whether or not to approve these new and revised policies at next month’s meeting.

Also featured during Monday’s meeting were the honoring of October’s Students of the Month, a monthly award given to one student at each of the district’s six schools. The students selected for Student of the Month are as follows:

Kincheloe: Caitlyn Yakim

Patrick Hamilton: Gabrielle Okonski

Erica Nash (from September)

Middle School: Elizabeth Frazer

Sister Lakes: Katherine Frazer

Justus Gage: Sierra Helmke

Union: Natalia Meza