High school enrollment numbers will stay relatively flat in the next 10 years, according to a report from the New England School Development Council released this week. The high school now has 682 students enrolled, and the report expects the number to stay in the high 600 range for some time.

“What’s really important in terms of planning for the future is they’re suggesting that number really stays stable all the way through 2016 and then drops off a little bit,” public schools superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss said Monday at the monthly high school committee meeting. “It’s a planning tool, it’s not perfect but it does give us a sense.”

Similar projections were done for the elementary schools, and those reports will be released in the coming weeks. Data regarding live births, student cohorts and housing arrangements is sent to the council every year. Enrollment was at its highest in 2000 the 20-year study period, nearing 2,500, and at its lowest this year at 2,027. Enrollment is only expected to go up to 2,246 by 2020.

In other business related to enrollment, the high school committee voted not to participate in the state’s school choice program. Mr. Weiss said the committee needs to vote on the issue every year, but he had not been aware of the requirement in the past.

Island elementary schools participate in the program that allows students to choose which school they’d prefer to attend; this will not change.

“[The high school has] not participated in school choice because it’s not practical; there’s no other high school on the Island to participate in school choice. My recommendation is to not participate in the program because it’s too complicated,” Mr. Weiss said. “If you’re going to decide to take school choice, it’s opening the door to anyone to come here when space is available.”

“It seems to me to have school choice would have that door open, why keep that door closed?” committee member Roxanne Ackerman asked. Ms. Ackerman was the only dissenting vote.

Next Wednesday, high school students will take a break on Wednesday and focus on their health at the second annual wellness day. Students will participate in a series of workshops and assemblies focused on finding balance between mind, body and soul.

Students had more than 30 options to chose from, including a food and nutrition class with Jan Buhrman of Kitchen Porch Catering, a zumba class at the YMCA across the street, self-defense training or fishing strategies with assistant principal Matthew Malowski.

“One of the nice things about this is we have 16 staff members who are going to be offering workshops for things they don’t typically teach,” school adjustment counselor and event organizer Amy Lilavois said at the meeting. “I went through all of the workshops we did last year and most of the people were willing to return. Through the help of the Whole Health Alliance and the Yoga Barn we got the word out to a lot of practitioners in the community.”

Ms. Lilavois and school guidance counselor Mike McCarthy will lead a workshop called Reduce Stress for School Success, aimed at ninth graders, and another, Managing the Stress of Applying to College, for sophomores and juniors. Other workshops include a suicide prevention course, CPR certification training and learning to juggle.

“It was another part of education we needed to touch on here in the building,” principal Stephen Nixon said. “[Last year] was one of the greatest interactive days I experienced here in the high school. With all the great success, we decided to do it again.”

“It’s incredibly impressive and so nice to look through this [schedule] and see different people in the community coming into the building,” committee member Susan Mercier said.