Study Shows School Attendance May Start Declining

Former school board trustee Lanny Ebenstein performed an analysis of South Coast school attendance trends and—based on their close relationship with Cottage Hospital birth records—predicted that attendance in the Santa Barbara district will begin to decline in 2016, potentially obviating the need for portable classrooms like the four at Franklin Elementary School. Enrollment in Goleta, he concluded will decline sooner and, he told the board, he sees little reason to build a new junior high school on Goleta property that the district purchased 50 years ago.