Managing Enrollment

If anyone had told me five years ago we would have waiting lists for open enrollment admittance I would have laughed them off. In fact, any time we had a request for open enrollment, it was a very easy 'yes'. My how the times have changed. Five years ago, our K-12 opening day enrollment was 754. We predict our opening day enrollment this fall will be somewhere in the vicinity of 880, an increase of more than 14%.

Managing enrollment is a very tricky undertaking. It is dynamic and ever changing. In fact, each January we begin to project the next fall's enrollment and will continue to take that measure all the way up to opening day on August 23. Those measures are important insofar as meeting our staffing needs. Our counting will continue through October 1, where that number will be certified and become a key variable in the budgeting process. Since we began our projections four months ago, it has been different each time, adjusting upward. Why? Well partly because people move in, and people move out. Sometimes they move in and the first time we hear about it is when they show up to register for school on the first day. The trend is clearly up.

We began the current school year staffed with 3 sections of kindergarten and deliberately put anyone on a waiting list that would have pushed us into 4 sections. It's not because we didn't have the capacity to handle 4 sections of kindergarten (look to this year's first grade for example). It was because adding another 4 section grade level would have a cascading effect on the entire elementary school, perhaps even at the high school. You see, at that point, we aren't only talking about adding 1 teacher, but adding additional auxiliary resources and staff. So we capped kindergarten at 3 sections, somewhere in the mid 60s. Fast forward to the the reality we are now faced with: next year that class will have 75 students, necessitating 4 sections. All due to residential enrollment growth. That's right. None of that growth came from open enrollment. It came from residential enrollment growth. 

You see, when it comes to residents (those who reside within our district boarders), they are automatically eligible for school registration. When it comes to open enrollment, we have a choice. When making that decision, the first metric that we have to consider is space. Our elementary classrooms are at their most efficient when they have about 20 students in them. So if the sections sizes are sub 20, then we can add open enrollment students. Further, when we completed the elementary renovation project in 2020, we set the building up to handle 4 sections. Granted, it will be tight but we can make a 4 section elementary happen. 

So if we determine we have the space, we'll typically grant the request. However, it's not carte blanche approval. Our first priority rests with those who already have a connection to the district. It may be a sibling that already attends or an employee of the district. After that, it is purely dependent on the time stamp under which the application was filed with the district. At this point, all of our K-3 and special education sections for next year are full. That means a number of open enrollment requests were put on waiting lists. As we go through the summer and people move in or move out, we may be able to accommodate additional requests. The operative word here being 'may'. 

That is because residential enrollment continues to climb. It hasn't eclipsed open enrollment yet, but it very well may. Our strategy for managing these two variables is simple in theory, but difficult in practice. Simply stated, as residential enrollment climbs open enrollment will have to decrease. 

When the high school task force convened and ultimately recommended the district move forward with the high school renovation project, I made the remark this wouldn't be the final construction project that would need to be considered by the district. As this column has hopefully articulated, enrollment is up and the trend appears to be set. But if another construction project is to be realized, it has to be for the benefit of our community. As some community members have pointed out, we would be ill advised to embark on a construction project for the benefit of another school district's students. I agree.

Even so, as I mentioned above, managing enrollment growth is a tricky business. Particularly when trying to balance the mix of residential and open enrollment. A difficult needle to thread indeed. Case in point, the growth experienced in the current kindergarten. 

Further, while I don't want to make this about revenue generation it would be foolhardy to say it isn't important. Truth be told there is no mistake that enrollment growth writ large, and in our current case open enrollment is having a positive impact on budget. If one were to look around the state, districts that are experiencing decreasing, or even static enrollment are experiencing budget cuts. And we're not just talking about smaller districts: Linn-Mar, Grinnell, Iowa City; the list goes on. Why? Because 2.5% SSA is not sufficient to maintain and grow programs. On the other hand, for districts that are growing rapidly, the revenue that is generated by enrollment growth blunts the shortfall created by SSA that doesn't keep up with inflationary costs. In our case, open enrollment will generate more than $1.5 million in revenue during the next school year. 

We've been on both ends of this issue as a school district. Times of declining enrollment coupled with low SSA resulting in budget cuts (translated to staff layoffs). Now we are in a period of increasing enrollment which also creates challenges. To be honest though, I prefer the challenges that come with growth as opposed to contraction. My guess is that you all do as well.