West Wendover schools saw a slight drop while Wendover, Utah school experienced a significant enrollment increase as the official student counts came in last week.
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According to the Elko County School district there were a total of 1158 students registered as of the official count day last Friday. The total is down 2.0 percent from last year’s total of 1181.
Across the state line in Wendover, Utah schools reported a total enrollment of 454 students up 8.6 percent over last year’s 418.
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This was the first time since the division of the joint school system in 1996 that the Utah schools saw such a healthy increase with a decline on the Nevada side.
For a little more than a decade education was a shared responsibility between the Elko County School District in Nevada and the Tooele County School District in Utah. Children from both sides of Wendover attended elementary school in West Wendover while older children went to the combined Jr./Sr. high school in Wendover, Utah.
When the agreement was sign in the mid 1980’s the population on both sides of the border town were roughly equal. While most of the jobs were located in West Wendover’s rapidly growing casino industry much of the housing was still in Wendover, Utah. But by the late 1980’s West Wendover saw an exponential increase in housing in the form of trailer parks, apartment complexes and single family homes and a doubling of its population.
The added population put pressure on the high school in terms of physical space and political pressure on both school boards. The Elko School Board along with some West Wendover parents began to pressure the Tooele Board to expand their high school and Tooele resisted on the grounds that the increase was mostly caused by Nevada pupils and Tooele County taxpayers should not have foot the bill.
After three years of an increasingly vociferous relationship the two districts parted ways. The Elko School District began building the West Wendover Jr/Sr High in 1995. Meanwhile the Tooele School board saw its first plan to handle the split by turning their high school into a first grade through 12th grade facility shot down by open public revolt of Wendover, Utah parents and by a study which found while there was enough room to house the 350 or so 6 to 18 year olds it was just barely enough. Instead of footing Tooele taxpayers with the bill of expanding the high school the Tooele board to maintain the unified system, the Tooele School district built a brand new elementary school. In the fall of 1996 Wendover, Utah kids and West Wendover, Nevada kids went their separate ways.
Until this recently both sides of town mirrored each other more or less in school enrollment. While the Nevada side’s school population has always been much larger than the Utah side both sides gained or lost students at relatively the same rates as the other.
The StateLine bankruptcy and the Great Recession both had a devastating impact on the population of both sides of town and both sides school enrollments. The West Wendover Elementary school for example lost about 30 students the equivalent of a class every year for five years from 2003 to 2009.
According to the census there are now 4,410 people in Wendover a drop of 6.6 percent from the 4,721 counted in 2000 and more importantly a drop of more than 10 percent from its estimated population of a bout 5,000 from the state demographers office.
West Wendover’s population decline has also spilled across the border into Wendover, Utah. The much smaller sister city also reported a decline of about 10 percent.
In the past five years Wendover, Utah however has shown signs of great resiliency than its larger sister to the west. While no where near a complete recovery Wendover, Utah has logged some notable new development such as the new Nugget RV Park, the expanded Shell Service Center and the Dollar Store. West Wendover, Nevada on the other hand has met with little success apart from the addition of the Smith’s Gas Station the only large project West Wendover has seen in almost a decade was the City Hall and a city paid for industrial park that so far has one tenant.
This greater resiliency may be reflected in this years school population numbers as well.
Another cause for Utah’s increase could be in the easier access to local, state and federal government financial assistance.
While West Wendover, Nevada’s poor must travel to either Elko or Ely to even apply for financial aid Tooele County administers many of the same programs from its offices in Wendover, Utah City Hall.
The full breakdown of Wendover’s student population is
2011: WWES– 654; WWHS– 496; Anna Smith– 261; WHS– 193.
2010: WWES– 685; WWHS– 504; Anna Smith– 241; WHS– 177.