The Brighton Area Schools’ enrollment count rose in the first semester of the 2018-19 academic year. Superintendent Greg Gray tells WHMI that the official, audited enrollment for the 2018 fall term totaled 6,034 pre-K-through-12 students - 34 students above the pre-count estimate of about 6,000.

Gray says that will put an additional $268,000 into district coffers, based on the district’s per-pupil state aid of $7,871 per student. He says the figures are an indicator that the financial stability in the district – which has resulted in an expansion in program and course offerings - is causing more families and students to enroll in the Brighton Area Schools.

However, statewide, public school enrollment figures are going for the most part in the opposite direction. According to the most recent audited data available, the Michigan Department of Education counted 1.4 million full-time-equivalent public school students in the fall of 2017. That's a drop of 6 percent since the fall of 2009.

Gray says the Shared Services program – in which the Brighton Area Schools teaches non-core curriculum classes to schools which cannot provide certain courses – has been highly successful with over 2,000 full-time equivalent students. Brighton offers the largest Shared Services program in the state, teaching classes in around 50 schools in about 12 counties, which adds about $2 million to the district’s revenues. (TT)