Cloquet enrollment still shrinking

Enrollment at Cloquet Schools is up from the end of the previous school year, but lower than numbers at the start of last year, superintendent Michael Cary told school board members Monday.

Cary said he has been digging into birth rates in the Cloquet area going back four to eight years, and it seems the decline in numbers is more about fewer babies being born and less about students choosing other school districts.

“We appear to be bringing in smaller and smaller cohorts of young children each time,” Cary said. “It looks like the number of kids in the community is shrinking. It has been for a...