FWCS will soon be the largest school district in Indiana

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - Soon, Fort Wayne Community Schools will be the largest school district in Indiana. Officials at FWCS said it's something they've anticipated over the past couple of years.

"We have been holding fairly steady in our enrollment. Even this year with our loss it's about one percent, "FWCS Spokesperson Krista Stockman said.

For decades Indianapolis Public Schools has been the largest district in the state. That will change once official numbers are in. Although FWCS will have the new title, administrators are viewing it differently. There aren't any added advantages to having the new label.

"It really doesn't mean anything different for us except for that possibly we're the largest. We don't get more funding and in fact this year we'll get less funding because we did decrease by 252 students."

This year Indianapolis Public Schools lost 1,500 students . FWCS now has almost 500 more students than IPS. Stockman said FWCS isn't going to celebrate the new title.

"The fact that we are is because another school district has lost so many students because of environmental situations there and that's not something that we're going to celebrate."

The spokesperson for Indianapolis Public Schools said losing the title doesn't mean much. The district is still happy with the number of students enrolled.

"We have four schools that have been taken over by private contractors. So, we had the potential to lose more than 4,000 students this year. We know now that we retained most of those students and our numbers are holding pretty steady," Indianapolis Public Schools Spokesperson John Althardt said.

The numbers right now are just preliminary. All of the districts in the state have to have them finalized in the next couple of weeks.