South Bend Community Schools set aim at improving enrollment

South Bend Community School Corporation is undergoing changes in order to increase future enrollment.

A major re-branding effort for the district will include the entire community.

"Community, parents, superintendent’s office, mayor’s office, business leaders of the community,” said Superintendent Kenneth Spells. “We’re all on team South Bend.”

Support from the community is there, now it’s going to take work to solve this district’s problems.

“We’re going to take a good look at the numbers, we’re going to take a good look at the students coming in,” said Spells.

By the numbers South Bend Community School Corporation has been hemorrhaging students for years.

The district dropped below the 19,000 students tally last year, losing more than 600 students in the fall.

So what’s the plan to fill these empty seats?

“Team South Bend, moving forward, making everyone proud of our school corporation,” said Spells. “We’re going to do a re-branding, just a lot of things in place. There’s a lot of excitement out in the community and we want to harness that excitement.”

With classes starting up in two weeks, Spells has his sights on 2017.

He hopes to make that year the year of this district’s turn around.

“We have great principals, we have great teachers, we have great leaders and we have great families.”