Despite a drop in enrollment of nearly 200 students, William S. Hart Union High School District officials said at Wednesday’s governing board meeting that the projected drop actually had predicted it would be worse than it turned out.  According to Collyn Nielsen, assistant superintendent of human resources, the district’s consultants had projected a drop of 400 students from last year’s number of 20,653. Instead, enrollment dropped only 194 to 20,459, including every junior and senior high school as well as all three alternative schools.  In terms of funding for the district, the 200 fewer students represents about $2.8 million less from the state this year, according to Jon Carrino, assistant superintendent of business services.  At the seven high schools, enrollment is down 75 students, with three of them — Hart, Saugus and Valencia — seeing slight jumps. Hart is up 10 students, Saugus is up 17 and Valencia is up 26.  At the six junior highs, two of them — Placerita and Rio Norte — saw increases, leading to an overall increase of five students.  All numbers for this year were taken from census day, which occurred on Oct. 2. Last year’s census day was Oct. 4.  The enrollment numbers are the number of students enrolled with the district, not the number of students who attended school that day, according to Nielsen.  Board member Cherise Moore said that with multiple new housing developments either currently in or set for construction, it only makes sense for enrollment to spike in the near future.  Nielsen said those homes, many on the west side of the Santa Clarita Valley, wouldn’t be described as “starter homes,” and therefore the people moving into those wouldn’t have school-aged children.  “There are high costs associated with housing all over California and Los Angeles, including Santa Clarita, and so a lot of those places, we do not have young families moving in with school-aged children,” Nielsen said.  Board member Joe Messina expanded on that, saying that in his conversations with the developers he has learned that there are fewer homes being sold, and that homes that are sold are actually going to families already living the SCV.  District staff was requested to look at the enrollment numbers for the elementary districts in the area to see if they could lead to a hope for future spikes. Board member Bob Jensen said he had heard of increases in the local feeder districts, “which would be a good sign.”  The post Hart district enrollment drops less than expected  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.