Student Population Decline By: Emily Butler, Kenny Carter, and Maggie French

The student population of Daniel Hand High School has been declining in recent years.

The student population was nearly 1,300 students 15 years ago. It has decreased to about 700 students this year.

“(There has been a) national birth decline, especially after the worldwide COVID pandemic that broke out five years ago,” Brian Bodner, assistant principal at Daniel Hand High School, said.

Bodner said Hand has been very lucky not to have to cut any courses offered due to the decline. The Board of Education has been successful in maintaining the classes offered.

“The high school is very proud of meeting 94% of student course requests,” Bodner said. “Other schools are doing well if they are at 80%-90%.”

On the athletics side of things, Athletic Director Christopher Farrell said that declining enrollment has had an impact on the school’s sports programs.

“We have seen a decline in freshman and JV teams “Farrell said. “Some students have to mature and develop much quicker when we don’t have sub-varsity programs where they would gain confidence and experience.”

He said rushed development can be tough for some students; those years on sub-varsity teams are often very beneficial in the transition to high school level sports.

Although many teams have dropped to smaller divisions in the state tournament, most teams are still performing as well as they were in the higher classes continuing to defend state and SCC champion titles.

“On the other hand, our varsity athletic teams have had no issues with success since the decline in population”, Farrell said.