Bucking a statewide trend, the Vineyard public school system continues to grow, with 2,253 students enrolled across the Island on Oct. 1 compared to 2,191 a year earlier.

Enrollment has risen at every campus except for Tisbury and West Tisbury, most steeply at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, which went from 706 students to 762 in the state-mandated census conducted every fall.

“Over at the high school we’re seeing remarkable growth,” superintendent of schools Dr. Richard (Richie) Smith told the Gazette.

“We’ve had upticks of 16 children [and] we’ve had some downturns, but our upticks have mostly been in the 12-13 range,” Mr. Smith said.

The Vineyard numbers belie a statewide trend. According to a Boston Globe analysis of enrollment data from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), published in July, enrollment in public schools has dropped by four per cent since the fall of 2019.

The Vineyard’s bumper crop of eighth-grade graduates this year accounts for some of the increase at the regional high school, but Mr. Smith also noted the increasing number of high school students arriving from abroad, chiefly Brazil.

“Newcomers [are] a much larger population hitting the high school now,” he said, adding that many of the arriving teenagers are first-year English learners.

Overall, English language learners represent 15 per cent of the high school’s students, Mr. Smith said.

English learners make up an even greater percentage of the student body at down-Island town schools, he said.

Out of nearly 400 studgents at the Edgartown School, 98, or 25 per cent, are classified as English language learners. In Oak Bluffs, the number is 110 out of 429, or 26 per cent.

When Mr. Smith was Oak Bluffs principal in 2011, he said, the school had 18 English learners.

At the Tisbury School this fall, 36 per cent of students — more than 90 — are English learners, while in West Tisbury the number drops to 20 out of 337, or 6 per cent.

Islandwide, Mr. Smith said, the parents of about 500 children have requested translation services for upcoming parent-teacher conferences.

The high school is also seeing more students from down-Island towns, Mr. Smith said.

Oak Bluffs has 18 more MVRHS students for a total of 218, Edgartown is sending 14 more (180 in all) and Tisbury 10 more (200).

West Tisbury’s high school enrollment rose by 15 — the exact number by which the West Tisbury School’s own enrollment has declined, after graduating a jumbo class of 55 eighth-graders in June — to 116 in all.

The number of high school students from Aquinnah and Chilmark have remained essentially the same at 14 and 34 in 2022, from 14 and 35 in 2021.

Partly because of the largely female eighth-grade class of 2022, girls account for much of this year’s enrollment increase at the high school.

The census showed 385 boys, 374 girls and three non-binary students at the high school this fall, compared to 386 boys and 320 girls in 2021.

Town school enrollment on the Island grew less markedly, from 1,485 in 2021 to 1,491 this year.

The Chilmark School has had the biggest proportional increase, escalating from 56 to 70 children in kindergarten through fifth grade.

“An uptick of 13 at Chilmark, when they only have 70, is noticeable. It’s somewhat remarkable,” Mr. Smith said.

The Oak Bluffs School has gone from 412 to 429 and Edgartown School from 394 to 399.

West Tisbury enrollment declined from 352 to 337 and the Tisbury School, which is about to relocate into modular classrooms for at least a year and a half during the school’s construction project, dropped from 270 to 256.

Tisbury School principal John Custer said the downturn was expected, for multiple reasons.

The school graduated 39 eighth-graders in June, and Mr. Custer said several families had told him in advance they would apply to enroll their younger students in other Island schools.

While the construction project — expected to take the next year and a half — was one factor mentioned, Mr. Custer said, he did not think was the only basis for the decisions.

“It was a combination of things,” he said.

This year’s eighth-grade class in Tisbury numbered just 19 on Oct. 1, but most other grades remain close to their 2021 numbers and one — the second grade — has bounced from 26 to 40.

A fervent alumnus of the school he leads, Mr. Custer said he doesn’t take it personally when parents choose another Island school.

“This is where my loyalty is, but it’s not to such a degree that I’m ever upset or offended,” he said. “I respect and understand that they’re looking out for their families.”