In Tupper Lake, 11 more students are enrolled this year than last at the same time. In Saranac Lake, 26 fewer students are enrolled this year compared to last. In Lake Placid, 20 fewer students are enrolled this year compared to last.

Two private schools, though, have seen significant increases — Adirondack Christian School in Wilmington and St. Agnes School in Lake Placid — which both doubled their student populations since the 2021-22 school year. ACS found this massive growth by offering a unique hybrid style education. St. Agnes found its growth through offering preschool classes.

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Saranac Lake

Hannah Pelkey shows off a monarch butterfly to her kindergarten class at Bloomingdale Elementary School on Sept. 12. (Provided photo — Beth Sullivan)

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The Saranac Lake Central School District has 1,044 students enrolled, 26 fewer than last year.

Enrollment at SLCSD had been on a steady decline for a decade. In the 2014-15 school year, the district had 1,266 students.

The district has two elementary schools with a total of 399 students this year — 103 at Bloomingdale Elementary and 296 at Petrova Elementary.

The middle school has 284 students, and the high school has 361 students.

Hannah Pelkey shows off a monarch butterfly to her kindergarten class at Bloomingdale Elementary School on Sept. 12. (Provided photo — Beth Sullivan)

There are 49 homeschooled students in the district this year, down from 58 last year. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the number of homeschooled children in the district had been in the 20s for around a decade. Before that, it had been higher — in the 40s.

Superintendent Diane Fox said all of these numbers are still in flux. On opening day of school Sept. 5, the district had 69 kindergarten students — around average for recent years, but up from a dip last year.

Fox pointed out the difference in that class size and the 2024 SLCSD graduating class of 89 this past June. She said the high school has higher numbers of students than the younger grade levels right now, but with fewer students coming in at those lower grade levels, the district anticipates those high school numbers will drop in a few years, unless something changes.

These declining enrollment numbers are leading to a multitude of discussions within the district, including the potential closure of the Bloomingdale Elementary School.

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Tupper Lake

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Tupper Lake saw a rebound in its enrollment, welcoming 733 K-12 students, according to Superintendent Jaycee Welsh, who was hired by the district in July.

Welsh came to Tupper Lake from the LaFargeville Central School District, in Jefferson County, where she served as the district’s executive principal and director of special education. She replaced Russ Bartlett, who retired after the district’s graduation last spring.

This year’s enrollment is up from last year, when the district began with 722 students and ended the year at 713. Welsh, the other administrators and the board of education members were pleased with these numbers, which were shared at the district’s Sept. 9 board meeting, its first since students began the school year.

Welsh noted that the school’s largest cohorts this year are their senior, sophomore, eighth and fourth-grade classes, which have 64, 61, 69 and 60 students, respectively.

The district also has 47 students enrolled in its full-day pre-K program, an increase of one student from last year, according to Welsh.

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Lake Placid

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Lake Placid Central School District saw a slight drop in enrollment, a situation that Superintendent Timothy Seymour said is largely due to a small incoming kindergarten class. The total enrollment at LPCSD this year is 530, which is 20 fewer students than what was reported at the beginning of last year.

Seymour also said the school tends to see a few middle schoolers start attending Northwood School once they are eligible to attend as ninth graders, especially since several LPCSD students have parents who work at Northwood and can therefore attend for free.

However, Seymour said he is not concerned that this is a larger trend. He is encouraged by the swell in enrollment at St. Agnes, which partners with the district’s universal pre-K program and will eventually feed into the district’s elementary school.

“I’m not seeing anything that suggests that we’re hemorrhaging population to the degree that we have over the 20 years,” Seymour said. “I do see some degree of stability in our enrollment.”

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AuSable Valley

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AuSable Valley Central School District saw a 4.8% decrease in enrollment, continuing a slight downward trend from last year’s enrollment decrease. A total of 1,094 students started this fall. The biggest drop was at Keeseville Elementary School, preschool through sixth grade, which dropped by 36 students compared to last year. The high school enrollment only dropped by 10 students.

Superintendent Mike Francia was unable to be reached for comment before the deadline.

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Long Lake

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The Long Lake Central School District’s K-12 enrollment dropped slightly from last year. With 51 students enrolled in K-12, this year marks a 9% decline from the number of students last year, which totaled 56. The district also has eight students enrolled in their full-day pre-K program this year, up from four students in the pre-K program last year.

Superintendent Camille Harrelson, who is in her first year with the district after being hired in April, said that the district has “not observed any significant fluctuations” in enrollment this year. Harrelson attributed the school’s academic success, extracurricular activities and school spirit to retaining students.

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Keene

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Keene Central School saw its enrollment continue to increase slightly, according to Superintendent Dan Mayberry. The school has 173 students for the 2024-25 school year, up from last year’s 170. This is the most students Keene has had since the 2014-15 school year — when Mayberry first became superintendent of the district — according to records kept by the Enterprise.

KCS has 88 elementary students, down slightly from 91 last year, and 85 middle and high school students, rising from last year’s 79. Their pre-k program has five students, the same number as last year. The pre-K students are educated at the Little Peaks Preschool and Early Childhood Center in Keene.

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Adirondack Christian School

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Enrollment at Adirondack Christian School has more than doubled in the past four years.

In 2021, the K-12 school had 40 students. In 2022, it jumped to 70. In 2023, the rise continued to 96. And classes started this year with 105 students.

The private Baptist school in Wilmington has drawn students from all over the region — 13 school districts, according to Director Harold Akey.

Akey said this “hockey stick” style growth came as a complete surprise to school administrators. They were not trying to grow so big and he’s not entirely sure what changed to bring this growth. But he’s got a couple suspicions.

The school offers flexibility in scheduling, a hybrid style of education somewhere between a traditional school and a homeschool co-op, where students can split time learning at the school and at home.

Akey feels the growth could be related to the coronavirus pandemic — a time when parents got a taste for homeschooling. If they wanted to continue that, but were looking for something that wasn’t full homeschooling, ACS fit the bill.

He also said people seeking a religious education has played a role in the growth.

The school has a chapel service every Wednesday with worship and a message, and Akey said that is always a big attendance day, for students and for parents, too.

He said the school is more of a community than an institution and that parents tell him they love that community feel.

“Parents want to be involved in their kids’ education and we’re giving them the space to do that,” Akey said.

With the school having a smaller size, they can do what the much larger districts can’t do, he said, including incorporating aspects of 4-H groups.

They have hiking groups, reading groups, maple syrup making groups and Akey said they’re working to revive the ski club, which had been running for two years before the coronavirus pandemic.

Akey said it was challenging to grow so fast. The school has needed to expand its staff from three to eight in just a few years.

But it’s also been enriching for the school, he added.

Before the growth, the school largely offered video classes, because they couldn’t teach all subjects with their few instructors. Now, Akey said they don’t have any video classes and classes are all teacher-taught.

He said they also have more parental volunteers, who come in to teach specialty subjects like computer coding or a shop class.

Currently, the school’s chapel service messages are focused on a theme of “serving joyfully, worshiping eagerly and walking humbly,” Akey said, with a focus on serving others and community service.

“How can we, as followers of Jesus, better serve the community that we live in?” he asked.

They are organizing beach and roadside cleanups, Christmas concerts and donations to local foster care support groups.

Akey said the school draws students from Brant Lake, Keene, Plattsburgh, Malone, AuSable Valley and all of the Tri-Lakes towns.

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Northwood School

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Northwood School saw an increase in enrollment this year. This year, they have 193 students in grades 9-12, which is up around 15 students from last year, according to Director of Admissions Gino Riffle. This increase was mostly among the boarding students — they have 146 boarding students and 47 day students this year. Both ninth and 10th grades increased by more than 10 students.

The student body makeup has stayed largely the same, Riffle said. They have students from 24 countries other than the United States and from 23 states.

Riffle attributes the increase in enrollment to a more focused, individualized recruitment process. This year, instead of focusing their travel on large fairs, they focused more on visiting students who were interested in their model. As a result, they had the highest applicant pool ever — 407 students interviewed last year and about 310 applied.

“Having that volume allowed us to have more mission-appropriate kids in the applicant pool,” Riffle said.

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North Country School

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North Country School, a private school near Lake Placid that offers boarding and day-student programs for grades 4 to 9, reported beginning the 2024-25 school year with 81 students, similar to last year’s 84 students. There are still several student applications for this year that the school’s department of admissions is reviewing, so the school’s enrollment could still increase slightly for this year, according to Stanzi Bliss, director of communications for the school.

Bliss said of the 81 students currently enrolled, 46 are boarding and 35 are day students. She also noted that the school’s international students hail from 10 nations: Canada, China, Guatemala, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Spain and Taiwan. Domestically, Bliss said that students come from 11 states, including California to the west and Florida to the south.

“The diversity of our student body is something we celebrate from a number of standpoints, including culturally, religiously, and socioeconomically,” she said.

North Country School hired Ashley Waldorf in July to serve as the new director of school.

“Her fresh perspective is incredibly valuable for the broader educational community here in the region and we’re thrilled to have her on board,” Bliss said.

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St. Agnes School

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St. Agnes School, a private Catholic school in Lake Placid, saw an increase in enrollment over 16%, which Principal Katie Turner said bodes well for the future of school enrollment in the area. At the start of the school year, they had 111 students enrolled, an increase from 95 total students in fall of 2023.

The significant increase in enrollment is mainly in the preschool population, according to Turner. This year, for the first time, they were able to have two classes for preschool three-year-olds, which allowed extra students to enroll.

“We’re hopeful it means families are coming to Lake Placid again,” Turner said. “So we’re hopeful for the whole area that in the next couple of years, as those students enter grade school, then everybody will be able to see an increase of enrollment.”

This year, St. Agnes has 65 preschool students, 26 of which are LPCSD universal pre-K students. They have 46 students enrolled in grades K-3, a slight increase from last year but not as pronounced as among the preschool students.

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St. Bernard’s School

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The St. Bernard’s School, a private Catholic school in Saranac Lake, has 72 students in its kindergarten through fifth-grade classes, three lower than last year.

The school also has 17 students in a pre-K class, which was added to the curriculum last year.

Principal Andrea Killborne-Hill said the school’s enrollment has been steady in recent years, rising since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Before the pandemic, she said the school had 63 students, the lowest in her time there.

She attributes the increase in enrollment to people recognizing the school’s “strong programming.”

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Northern Lights

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Northern Lights School Administrator Polly Kelting said the Waldorf-inspired, nature-based school for youngsters in Saranac Lake has 15 infants and toddlers and 17 in pre-K classes this year.

The school is full, she said.

Last year, the school had 24 preschoolers and 17 infants and toddlers. The year before, the district had 23 preschoolers and 19 infants and toddlers.

This is the third year the school has been in its new building, the former Lake Colby School building. The larger space allowed them to have more children than before.

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By the numbers

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These numbers are unofficial, reported by schools to the Enterprise during the first few days of classes. Schools are listed from most populous to least populous.

Preschool enrollment is not included. An asterisk (*) indicates the district also hosts preschool.

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AuSable Valley Central School District (K-12)*

2024-25: 1,094

2023-24: 1,149

2022-23: 1,166

2021-22: 1,155

2020-21: 1,133

2019-20: 1,125

2018-19: 1,150

Saranac Lake Central School District (K-12)

2024-25: 1,044

2023-24: 1,070

2022-23: 1,067

2021-22: 1,110

2020-21: 1,099

2019-20: 1,163

2018-19: 1,152

Tupper Lake Central School District (K-12)*

2024-25: 733

2023-24: 722

2022-23: N/A

2021-22: 736

2020-21: 802

2019-20: 762

2018-19: 770

Lake Placid Central School District (K-12)

2024-25: 530

2023-24: 550

2022-23: 537

2021-22: 559

2020-21: 561

2019-20: 606

2018-19: 625

Northwood School (Private, Lake Placid, 9-12)

2024-25: 193

2023-24: 178

2022-23: N/A

2021-22: 187

2020-21: 187

2019-20: N/A

2018-19: 193

Keene Central School (K-12)

2024-25: 173

2023-24: 170

2022-23: N/A

2021-22: 167

2020-21: 157

2019-20: 156

2018-19: 163

North Country School (Private, Lake Placid, 4-9)

2024-25: 81

2023-24: 84

2022-23: 86

2021-22: 76

2020-21: 67

2019-20: 76

2018-19: 79

St. Bernard’s School (Catholic, Saranac Lake, K-5)

2024-25: 72

2023-24: 75

2022-23: N/A

2021-22: 79

2020-21: 63

2019-20: 68

2018-19: 85

St. Agnes School (Catholic, Lake Placid, K-3)*

2024-25: 111

2023-24: 95

2022-23: 43

2021-22: 52

2020-21: 48

2019-20: 43

2018-19: 46

Adirondack Christian School (Baptist, Wilmington, K-12)*

2024-25: 105

2023-24: 96

2022-23: 70

2021-22: 40

2020-21: 30

2019-20: 30

2018-19: 26

Long Lake Central School (K-12)

2024-25: 51

2023-24: 56

2022-23: 60

2021-22: 65

2020-21: 68

2019-20: 65

2018-19: 61

Northern Lights School (Waldorf, Saranac Lake)*

2024-25: 0

2023-24: 0

2022-23: 0

2021-22: 0

2020-21: 0

2019-20: 3

2018-19: 8