Our enrollment was officially certified with the state on October 11. Certifying enrollment is an important event that occurs annually each October, with that number being the base variable in the calculation of the regular program district cost for the coming fiscal year. In other words, our certified enrollment will form the 'base' budget number for the fiscal year set to begin on July 1, 2023 (FY2024). It is calculated like this: certified enrollment X district cost per pupil = regular program district cost. This is the largest revenue number in our budget. The official enrollment numbers this year track relatively close to our opening day numbers.
To read the full report that includes trendlines and projections, please visit the 'About Us' page of the school website. You will note the numbers included in the official certification vary slightly from the report that is published on our school website. For the sake of simplicity, I use fewer categories of enrollment and discount fractional students. Fractional numbers are used to add weighting for students who are dual enrolled from another district, students who are weighted for special programming, and preschool students which are counted at .5FTE. The table depicted above is official pending an external audit that will occur later in the month. Nevertheless, the news for our district is good, showing a strong gain in enrollment across all measures.
Certified enrollment is up approximately 36.49 students. At the same time, our BEDS count is up by 55.59, from 767.-822.89. This represents a net increase in enrollment of almost 7% in one year. It is also noteworthy that last year enrollment grew by 5%. Again, our official numbers track very closely to opening day numbers, which was 821 (K-12).
The number of students open enrolling out of Hudson has also increased, with 60 open enrolling out of the district. While open enrollees ‘destination of choice’ is Cedar Falls (34), it also appears a number of students are taking advantage of online schools. We have 172 open enrolling into Hudson, compared to 136 last year. With a net positive of 112 students, this is a good sign for the district. The large increase in open enrollment to Hudson is attributable to a change in law that eliminated school districts’ voluntary desegregation plans absent a court order. It is also important to note that the open enrollment deadline of March 1 for applying under this law was eliminated during the last legislative session. The impact of this legislative change is yet to be determined, but with students being able to change schools at any time during the school year, I anticipate greater transiency in enrollment.
We had 28 students who were enrolled last year but have subsequently transferred out or moved to another school district. This compares to 68 students who moved out last year and would suggest a more transient population of learners. Of these 28 students, some have elected to homeschool, which obviously has a negative impact on our enrollment.
At the same time though, we have a much larger kindergarten class this year compared to what we had anticipated. This larger class can be attributed to open enrollment, with 25 kindergarten students open enrolling into the district.
Of the 60 students who are open enrolled out, 34 of them are open enrolled to Cedar Falls while 2 are open enrolled to Waterloo and one to Union. The balance of our open enrollees [largely] are participating in online school programs at Clayton Ridge, CAM, and Iowa City. 24% of those open enrolled to Cedar Falls have an address of 700 W. Ridgeway at the time of original application. This address, while in the Hudson Community School District is on the northern border of the district and actually within the city limits of Cedar Falls.
The largest number of students open enrolling into Hudson comes from Waterloo: 111 students. This is followed by Gladbrook-Reinbeck at 20, Cedar Falls at 15 and Union at 12. The remaining students are attending from North Tama (10), Dike-New Hartford (3), and Waverly (1).
Enrollment projections are calculated based on a cohort methodology that uses a five year rolling average to determine kindergarten size. Over the last 5 years, the kindergarten has averaged 64 students; while in the last 10 years it has averaged 59. Based on both residential enrollment growth coupled with open enrollment, a projection of 64 seems to be right particularly since open enrollment from Waterloo is due to the aforementioned change in state law. With this methodology, estimates from prior years are left static since there is no algorithm to accurately predict transfers in or out of the district. If these projections were come to fruition, we will reach our high-water mark of 839 in 2023-2024. Previous attempts have been made to account for residential growth, and assuming 1.9 children per household evenly distributed could push K-12 enrollment into the mid 950 range by 2028-2029. However, I would exercise extreme caution when making this assumption and at the same time we must understand potential growth could be significant.
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