By JOHN EBY

Dowagiac Daily News

Dowagiac Superintendent of Schools Dr. Mark Daniel reported to the school board Oct. 18 at the middle school that the official enrollment of 2,419 while 18 above projections, falls 39 short of last year.

“Principals have assisted us in looking at our withdrawals,” Daniel said.

“There are several reasons. We do have a very small senior class and a small junior class — 105 and 124, respectively.

“We know that bubble is passing through. If you look at our current freshmen and sophomore levels, those are then back up to about 175 for 10th grade and 218 for ninth grade.

“We see this being truly an anomaly, but at the same time we do want to address why our students might be dropping out, perhaps to Pathfinders,” the alternative education center across E. Prairie Ronde from DUHS.

“Other students are moving to different cities, different states even,” the superintendent reported. “The majority of those withdrawals have been for moving out of the district or moving out of the state, trying to locate jobs, I believe.”

“It’s not quite as good as we thought we were going to have,” Daniel said.

Dowagiac’s enrollment stood at 3,071 in 1994-1995, had fallen to 2,868 by 2000 and below 2,500 in 2009-2010.

There has been no increase in fall pupil count since 2005-2006, when it increased from 2,700 in 2004-2005 to 2,713 after slipping from 2,761 in 2003-2004.