Enrollment up slightly at South Lake Tahoe schools

After several years of declining enrollment, Lake Tahoe Unified School District (LTUSD) has seen more students sitting the seats of local schools over the past two years.

The lowest enrollment figures were for the school year 2012-2013. When school ended in June of 2013 there were 3,793 students in South Lake Tahoe's eight schools.

When school started back up in the Fall of 2013 there were 3,855 students enrolled. An additional 26 students started off this school year.

LTUSD released some statistics for the 3,881 students:

· 47% Female / 53% Male
· 28% English Learners
· 11% Special Education
· 3% GATE (Gifted & Talented Education)
· 59.9% Free & Reduced Lunch
· 0.9% Foster Youth
· 6.3% Homeless

Not all of those categories were evaluated the previous year, but of those that were, there were some slight changes.

In the fall of 2013 the school district had 30% English learners, 12.7% were in Special Education classes, 4.1% were GATE, 61.8% received free or reduced lunches.

The number of homeless youth in South Lake Tahoe has remained about the same over the years. 243 students at local schools are considered homeless (which means no permanent roof over their head ).

Most schools in South Lake Tahoe have large numbers of students that qualify for the free or reduced lunch program. 84.2% of the students who participate in the Transitional Learning Center qualify, as do 75.9% of Tahoe Valley Elementary students, 74.4% at Mt. Tallac, 73.5% at Bijou Community School, 62.5% at Sierra House, 61.9% at South Tahoe Middle School, 54.4% at South Tahoe High and 21.4% at the Environmental Science Magnet School. Just 1% of the students in LTUSD are immigrants.