SYRACUSE — Friday, Sept. 16, began the process for public schools to report enrollment numbers to the Indiana Department of Education. It is officially known as ADM, or average daily membership.

Preliminary enrollment numbers for the Wawasee Community School Corp. are down overall compared to the same time a year ago. The total overall count for the entire corporation is 3,059, down from the 3,145.04 reported a year ago (students who are homeschooled but attend classes at Wawasee are not counted as full students).

“Our senior class last year at this time had 260 students,” said Joy Goshert, director of instruction and curriculum for the Wawasee school corporation. “This year’s kindergarten class has 208 students, and last year’s kindergarten class was under 200 and is our smallest class going through our system. We had a much larger class leave us and a smaller class enter our system this year than what left us last year.”

Only Wawasee Middle School and Syracuse Elementary School have higher preliminary numbers than at this time a year ago. WMS is at 512 (492 last year) and Syracuse Elementary is at 555 (532 last year).

Wawasee High School is down considerably at 947 from 1,016 a year ago. Milford School is at 562 (615 a year ago) and North Webster Elementary is at 483 (502 last year).

It should be noted this is only the beginning of the process of reporting enrollment numbers to the state. School corporations will be submitting data through Sept. 28 and there could be, and generally are, conflicts. For example, different school corporations could be submitting the same name for various reasons and that generates a conflict that must be resolved between the corporations.

Those conflicts must be resolved by Friday, Oct. 7, and Thursday, Oct. 13, is the final sign off date. Goshert said Wawasee’s numbers can change “by a few” but have never drastically changed by the time the final numbers are reported.

Another enrollment report will occur in February 2017.