HUNTINGTON BEACH : Enrollment Dips at 2 District High Schools

Ocean View High and Westminster High show enrollment declines this year, but all other high schools in the three-city Huntington Beach Union High School District are showing increases.

Enrollment figures for the district were presented last week to the school board. The district governs high schools in Huntington Beach, Westminster and Fountain Valley.

Ocean View High, which is in Huntington Beach, had a 7.83% decrease in enrollment compared with September, 1993. Westminster High dropped 4.53% in enrollment compared with a year ago.

By contrast, enrollment at the Fountain Valley High increased 2.54%; Huntington Beach High increased 2.38%; Marina High in Huntington Beach increased 0.8%, and Edison High in Huntington Beach increased 0.16%.

District Supt. David Hagen said economic conditions appear to have caused the enrollment declines in Ocean View and Westminster high schools. “There are more apartments in those two high school attendance areas, and because of general economic conditions, fewer people with high school-age children are living in those areas,” Hagen said.

Hagen said that Ocean View High has been adversely affected by student transfers. He said that transfers, however, have not been a significant problem for enrollment at Westminster High.

Overall, there are 13,227 students in the high school district this year, compared with 13,364 in September, 1993. The 1% total decline this year is the lowest in many years, Hagen said. He added that the district expects an increase in enrollment in September, 1995.

The number of high school students in the district has been decreasing since the late 1970s. Hagen said a major reason for the decline has been that adults who bought homes in the area when their children were young tended to stay after the children graduated. But in recent years, families with young children have been moving into the three cities. Many of those children will be freshmen in high school next year, Hagen said.