Mark Farrar Takes Over at Silver Lake, Where Enrollment Has Held Its Ground for Five Years

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Mark Farrar had led high schools before he took the top job at Silver Lake^↗ USD 372. What he wanted first, once he got there, was to hear from the people already doing the work.

"My first priority has been listening and learning," Farrar wrote in response to written questions from The KSEdTribune. "I want to understand what our students, staff, parents and community believe we do exceptionally well, as well as where we have opportunities to grow."

Farrar confirmed in writing that he is the new Superintendent of Schools at Silver Lake and that his start date was July 1. The district's board announced the hire in early February, effective at the start of the fiscal year, according to WIBW. He succeeds Brad Womack, who told the station last October that he would retire at the end of the school year after a career with the district, most recently as superintendent.

Farrar came to the office by a route that stayed inside high school buildings. He was principal at Turner High School in Kansas City, he said, and principal at Tonganoxie High School before that. The board's announcement adds earlier stops, a principalship at Waverly Public Schools and an assistant principalship at Wichita South High School, and notes that he holds district-level licensure and was selected after what the board called a comprehensive search process.

"I had the opportunity to serve as a high school principal at Turner High School, and that experience gave me a tremendous appreciation for the work it takes to build a strong school culture and serve students well," he wrote.

What drew him to Silver Lake, he said, was the district's reputation and the town around it. "I truly believe Silver Lake is one of the best school districts in the state, and I wanted to be part of that," he wrote, describing dedicated educators, engaged families and a community that cares about its schools.

A steady headcount, and what steady actually means

Silver Lake enrolled 681 students last school year, 2025-26, the most recent year in the state's published enrollment record. Current-year counts will differ once Kansas publishes 2026-27 figures.

That 681 is 8 students below where the district stood in 2020-21, a change of 1.2% across five years. Across the longer window the state record covers, from 2014-15 to 2025-26, the district is down 45 students, or 6.2%.

We asked Farrar whether that steadiness takes work, given how close the district sits to Topeka. His answer accepted the point and then qualified it.

"Our enrollment stability is something we should be proud of, but I don't think we should ever take it for granted," he wrote. "Being close to a larger community like Topeka means families have choices, and every school district has to earn the confidence of families."

The published record supports the first half of that sentence and complicates the word stability. Over the same five years, a balanced panel of 285 Kansas districts with a published total in every reporting year fell 1.1%, so Silver Lake's five-year move sits almost exactly on the state's own line rather than above it. It is a small move by any measure: 29 of those 285 districts moved as little as Silver Lake did or less over the span.

Underneath that flat five-year result is a line that does not sit still. The district fell to 674 students in 2022-23 and reached 710 in 2021-22, a spread of 36 students inside a window that ends where it began, and the direction of travel reversed three times across five annual transitions. The most recent year moved down by 13 students, or 1.9%.

None of that arithmetic tells anyone why. The state record shows the movement and stops there. It does not show whether a family stayed because of a teacher, a program or a building, and Farrar's own framing is that the confidence has to be earned rather than assumed.

The county around it

Farrar's remark about proximity to Topeka points at a real geography. Silver Lake is one of five unified school districts in Shawnee County, and every one of them is smaller than it was in 2014-15.

The largest loss in the county belongs to Topeka Public Schools^↗, down 1,623 students, or 11.6%, across the available record. Seaman^↗ and Auburn-Washburn^↗ both gave up ground over the same years, and Shawnee Heights^↗ is the outlier that ended almost exactly where it started. Silver Lake sits in the middle of that group, and its 6.2% decline over the full record is a little steeper than the statewide panel's 4.4%.

The pattern is county-wide, in other words, and the enrollment record cannot separate a family that moved from a family that chose. It is context for the work rather than a verdict on any district in it.

Farrar's answer to the pressure is not to compete on the number.

"That doesn't mean we need to chase enrollment numbers at the expense of who we are," he wrote. What it does mean, in his account, is to "continue providing an excellent educational experience, maintaining a strong school culture and communicating clearly about the opportunities we provide."

What the first year is built around

Alongside the listening, Farrar described a working list: "supporting teaching and learning, strengthening our systems for supporting students, increasing student voice, developing our staff and making sure our facilities and long-term planning position the district for the future."

One of those has a measurable local shape. The number of Silver Lake students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch has risen from 121 in 2014-15 to 150 in 2025-26, taking the share of enrollment from 16.7% to 22.0%. That is a service population that overlaps with every other group in the district rather than sitting beside them, and it is the one such count Kansas publishes for Silver Lake in every year of the record. The state's files do not publish the district's race and ethnicity counts or most of its grade-level cells, so neither supports a claim here.

The enrollment history gives Farrar a starting point for facilities and staffing discussions. Similar endpoints do not guarantee stable enrollment ahead, particularly when the annual counts have moved in both directions.

Farrar ended his written answers on what he wants the district to be rather than on what it currently counts.

"I want Silver Lake to be a place where families choose to stay, where new families want to come, and where students feel known, supported and challenged," he wrote. "My hope is to help us protect what makes Silver Lake special while continuing to move the district forward."

Enrollment figures come from the Kansas State Department of Education public enrollment record. The series has no headcount file for the school year ending in 2020, so that step is left open rather than shown as an annual change. Mr. Farrar responded in writing to questions sent by email.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.

Shawnee Heights - EdTribune KS - Kansas Education Data

Mark Farrar Takes Over at Silver Lake, Where Enrollment Has Held Its Ground for Five Years

A steady headcount, and what steady actually means

The county around it

What the first year is built around