Wildwood, which announced that it would cancel its varsity football program for the 2015 season due to issues that have arisen during the off-season, has been also seen its fair deal of issues when it comes to enrollment.
With the major growth of The Villages over the last decade and now surrounds the northern and eastern parts of the city, enrollment has been on a steady decline for at least the last five years.
Here is a look at the numbers and the classification the football team was in for each of the years going back to 2002, the first year all four high school grades was counted for student enrollment by the Florida High School Athletic Association.
Year | Enrollment | Classification |
2002 | 539 | 2A |
2003 | 516 | 2B |
2004 | 495 | 2B |
2005 | 478 | 2B |
2006 | 484 | 2B |
2007 | 477 | 2B |
2008 | 460 | 1A |
2009* | 416 | 1A |
2010 | 413 | 1A |
2011 | 402 | 1A (Rural) |
2012 | 393 | 1A (Rural) |
2013 | 387 | 1A (Rural) |
2014 | 384 | 1A (Rural) |
* – Wildwood Middle was merged with the high school. Middle school enrollment does not count towards student enrollment.
As you can see in the table above, for every year except 2006, Wildwood has had a steady decline in student enrollment. In 2009 the middle school merged with the high school as declining enrollment forced a merger of the schools to help cut costs.
There is no idea what the 2015 school year will bring for enrollment at Wildwood, but it is certainly worth watching in what could develop this coming school year.