While some neighboring communities have experienced declines in their public school enrollment, the Powell school district has continued growing over the past 10 years.

Park County School District No. 1’s enrollment stood at 1,761 students as of Oct. 1, according to data recently released by the Wyoming Department of Education. The data shows that Powell’s enrollment was up 23 students (1.3 percent) from October 2013, and up 152 students (9.4 percent) from the 1,609 pupils who were enrolled in 2005.

The steady increase in enrollment is welcomed by Kevin Mitchell, superintendent of the Powell school district.

“It sure indicates that Powell is a viable community,” Mitchell said Monday.

Powell continues to see more students in the elementary schools while the smallest classes are in high school.

The largest class in the district is second grade, which has 156 students. Kindergarten follows with 154 kids.

Powell’s smallest class is 11th grade (108 students) followed by this year’s sophomores (117).

Those higher numbers in the elementary school grades make it difficult to plan for classroom space in the future.

“We’ve got to make sure it’s not just a bubble and is a steady trend before we can do any long-term planning, such as an additional elementary school per se,” Mitchell said. “We do have that on our radar, though.”

Powell school district leaders have discussed the increasing enrollment with the Wyoming School Facilities Department and plan to continue that conversation at a meeting next month.

“We are looking at, if we did add, what would it look like? Would it be another regular elementary school? Would it replace Parkside? Or would we have four elementaries?” Mitchell said. “So those are all just in the discussion phase, but certainly we’re looking at that because we need to.”

It’s difficult for educators to know exactly why the Powell  district is growing, as there isn’t any clear data on what’s driving families to move here.

“We’re looking for those reasons ourselves,” Mitchell said. “I just continue to say that people are continuing to move back to the community and want to raise their kids here.”

He also hears from parents who say they moved to Powell because of the school system. Northwest College, the low crime rates and quiet way of life also are draws, he said.

“It’s an overall great community with a lot to offer in the entire Big Horn Basin,” he said.

He said district leaders have met with the Powell Economic Partnership to look at data on job growth and families moving in.

Meanwhile, student enrollment has declined in the Cody and Meeteetse school districts. Enrollment in Park County School District No. 6 in Cody totals 2,105 students this year. That’s a 4.6 percent decrease from the 2,208 students the Cody system had in 2011 — its peak enrollment for the last decade.

Enrollment in Park County School District No. 16 in Meeteetse is 109 students this year for the entire district — just one student more than Powell’s smallest class.

Since 2005, when the Meeteetse district had 133 students, enrollment has fallen 18 percent or by 24 students.

“I’m not sure that we can pinpoint reasons,” said Jay Curtis, Meeteetse Schools superintendent. “Most of the families that we’ve seen go in the last two or three years have just been for work elsewhere.”

Since Meeteetse is a small district, when a handful of students move away, it’s a large percentage, Curtis said.

Curtis said he’s a bit nervous about next year because there are nine outgoing seniors from Meeteetse High School, but only a few incoming kindergarteners.

Enrollment figures are an important factor in determining state funding for school districts. However, to the benefit of smaller districts, the model is based on a three-year rolling average and not just one year, Curtis said.

“It’s not like you’re falling off a funding cliff every time you have a large family move out the door,” he said. “It’s built into the model as a safeguard.”

Statewide, enrollment in Wyoming’s public schools grew to 93,303 students — 1,085 more  than the previous school year.

Powell ranks as Wyoming’s 15th largest district, with Cody being the 12th largest. Meeteetse, meanwhile, came in as the state’s third smallest district. Only Clearmont (with 84 students) and Ten Sleep (91 kids) had fewer pupils.