There were 3,398 students in the district as of Friday, which is 80 students more than projections last year but 10 students below the school's funded enrollment, which is determined on the 80th and 120th day of each school year, according to District Superintendent Karen Couch.

That's down about 30 students from numbers reported last month, but still encouraging, Couch said. The trend over nearly a decade has been for enrollment to decline by about 5 percent from year to year.

She added that, with the possibility of the state Legislature cutting school funding in order solve its budget problems, it's good to have one less thing to worry about.

"For us, to be essentially flat is very good news," she said, "Especially when you're looking at cuts in the education budget."

The increase from projections in enrollment was concentrated in three schools, Moriarty Elementary School, which was about 15 over projections; Route 66 Elementary, which was about 25 over projections; and Moriarty High School, which is up by about 40 students.

Muddying the enrollment issue is a suggestion that the entire increase was due to students transferring to Moriarty High School from Estancia Valley Learning Center.

Support for that suggestion comes from a decrease in enrollment at EVLC, from the average student population of 95 students last year to the current enrollment of 45 students, according to Estancia Municipal School District Superintendent Carolyn Renteria. But those numbers bare scrutiny.

Moriarty High School saw the largest increase in its ninth grade class, which has exceeded projections by over 60 students, Couch said. Compare that to the typical freshman class of only about 10 students at EVLC, according to Estancia Municipal School District Superintendent Carolyn Renteria. And EVLC had only one transcript request from MHS, Renteria said.

In addition, at the end of last year, EVLC's student population had already dwindled to 78 students. That decrease came after a set of findings and recommendations from the Public Education Department late in 2008. The result was that students were required to spend more time in class than they had previously.

The school also lost members when 30 students graduated in mid-July. That left EVLC with a total loss of three students from its returning population, Renteria said.

Meanwhile, Couch said that her district's numbers are not yet proof that the district is out of its nearly decadelong downward trend in enrollment, even though they are exciting.

"We're not prepared to stay that we've started a new trend," she said. "We'll need a couple of years of data."