Why are district costs going up when enrollment is relatively steady?
(Return to questions list.) A. While overall student enrollment growth has slowed, we have experienced significant enrollment growth within certain student populations. There are costs associated with meeting the needs of specific student populations, and unfortunately, not much assistance is provided by the state to help offset these costs. Westerville also believes in reasonable class sizes, so it has an appropriate number of teachers to maintain sufficient pupil-teacher ratios. Westerville benefits from a highly-educated and highly-experienced staff, so the compensation offered to these employees must be competitive in the local marketplace. Nearly 85 percent of district teachers have Master’s degrees or higher, and approximately 66 percent have 10 or more years of experience.
