St. Louis Public’s marketing effort may be working, at least by one indicator.

It seems that fewer city students have applied to transfer to county schools for the 2009-10 school year.

And more county students have applied for transfers to city schools.

The Voluntary Interdistrict Choice Corporation reported this week that it expects total transfer enrollment to drop from 6,800 students this past school year to 6,400 next year, a drop of about six percent.

Here’s the note from the June 12 VICC board meeting:

As of June 2, 2009, VICC had received 2,981 applications for transfers to county schools for the 2009-2010 school year, which is down somewhat from the 3,281 received at this point last year, due to more targeted recruiting efforts in the current year based upon space availability.

Although interest on the part of city families remains high, the number of openings available for 2009-2010 continues to be lower than in previous years, although at 556 openings, it is a slight increase over the 450 new spaces that were available for the 2008-2009 school year. The vast majority of spaces for new students are at the Kindergarten - first grade level (68 percent). Only 27 new spaces were available in grades 5 - 12 combined. One reason for this decline in spaces is that student retention has improved greatly at most districts, so fewer “replacement students” are needed at upper grade levels.

As a net result, the overall trend in VICC enrollment is expected to remain at about a six percent annual decline in spite of reduced new enrollments.

While county to city (magnet) applications remain at relatively low levels, they have increased slightly from last year due to increased recruiting efforts including targeted mailings. Year-to-date applications for 2009-2010 total 140, compared to 110 and 168 the previous two years. Actual acceptances are also up and currently total 95 compared to 48 and 81 during the previous two years.