City Schools Expect High Enrollment

The Cambridge school system is expecting a larger than average increase in enrollment next year, school officials said yesterday.

Although the expected boost in enrollment will necessitate additional classroom, officials said yesterday that it is unclear if the funds will be available to create this space.

The administration has projected an increase of 162 more students in kindergarten through eighth grade, said Albert H. Giroux, Director of public information for the Cambridge School Department.

This increase is larger than previous increases which have averaged about 100 new students for the last five years.

Cambridge school administrators, anticipating a space shortage, recently invited an outside evaluator, John Calabro, to study the need for additional classrooms.

According to Giroux, Calabro estimated in a preliminary presentation last Monday that 13 more classrooms will be necessary to accommodate the news students.

Trim Needed

Last week in a special city council meeting school officials said that $3.6 million must be trimmed from the project school budget of $71.9 million.

Because of the possible budget cuts Giroux said he did not know if the schools would have the funding necessary to create the additional classroom space.

E. Denise Simmons, a member of the School Committee, said the committee does not want to cut existing school programs to pay for the new students.

Giroux said one reason for the large increase in enrollment in the city increasing the birth rate of over the past ten years. Another of the factor is the changing dynamics of the Cambridge population, he said.

"The population trends within the city have changed," Giroux said. "There are more families moving in with many kids."

Although some parochial school closings may have created more demand for Cambridge public education, Giroux said he hasn't noticed a decline in private school enrollment."

Giroux said the space crunch at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School is not as great.

The school administration projects an increase of 810 students next year, but the high school has eight different program tracks, which allow the new students to be integrated into the existing classrooms.