Rinker Buck of the Hartford Courant wrote an interesting piece this week, “Enrollment Shift Could Burden Farmington Valley Towns” in which he lays out the linkages between public and private school enrollment in private school dense areas. Looking at Hartford and its surrounding area, its private school density and the changing fortunes of private school families, he presents the private and public school sides of the education coin as some families shift their children from private to public schools.

Mark Zito, Simsbury schools’ Director of Human Resources told Buck, “This winter, during our budget planning process for the 2009-2010 school year, we were aware that there might be an influx of students from private schools…We are planning for an extra 33 students above what the models predict our enrollment size should be.” (Hartford Courant)

Public and private schools have been living in a very nice world with families paying local school taxes while paying private school tuition. Now local public schools face increasing resource demands as students migrate to public system while prep schools face declining endowments, enrollments and tuition dollars.

Westminster School Headmaster, Graham Cole added: “I have not seen anything like this before…The independent schools have been riding the crest of good times for so many years, so it’s a wrenching emotional experience for us now. But I’m confident there will still be a role for independent schools and that they will still be here.” (Hartford Courant)