By Jamie Ausk Crisafulli
Ranger-Review Staff Writer
Enrollment in Glendive Public Schools dropped a total of 12 students compared to the official fall enrollment numbers.
Although the drop in students is small, the steady decrease in numbers the past three years across the board is concerning for school officials.
“Because we get paid per student, it will affect our funding,” Superintendent of Schools Stephen Schreibeis said in an interview Wednesday. “The big issue is if our enrollment keeps dropping, we will continue to lose funding and that is a tough thing.”
The district submits its official enrollment count to the Montana Office of Public Instruction twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring, on dates determined by the state Office of Public Instruction. The amount of funding a school district receives from the state is directly tied to the number of students enrolled in its schools on those two dates.
Schools funding is determined in one of two ways: based on the number of students enrolled in the previous school year or based on the three-year average enrollment. Because the three-year average is a higher number, that is what the Glendive District’s state funding will be based on for the 2018-19 school year.
Schreibeis noted that the slow loss of student numbers isn’t enough for the district to cut classrooms, which means the district’s operating costs remain the same with less money coming in from the state.
“It’s difficult to make up those numbers, that’s why we are going to voters this spring,” he added.
Currently, the smallest class in the district is the freshmen class with 77 students. There are currently two classes with over 100 students: the fifth grade with 107 and the junior class with 104.
At the peak of the five-year enrollment there were seven classes in grades kindergarten through 12 that had over 100 students (during the fall enrollment count).
Dawson County High School lost five students from the official fall count, putting the high school enrollment at 359 students for the spring enrollment count. The five-year peak enrollment for DCHS was 389 in the fall of 2015. The five-year low was 316 students in the spring of 2014.
Looking at numbers coming down the pike, DCHS will likely take an enrollment dip when the current junior class graduates.
“When that large class moves out, that will be a little bit bigger of a hit ... this is something we’ve been looking at for awhile. Losing 24 students, now you’re talking class sizes. When you drop that much, you have to combine classes and ... get rid of certain things,” Schreibeis noted.
But Schreibeis also noted that predicting enrollments is difficult.
He said that in the past factors like BNSF layoffs have resulted in a smaller impact than district officials expected, while other times the reason for enrollment gains or losses couldn’t be pinpointed at all.
“Hard to focus on it entirely. We have to try to plan for the worst and hope for the best, and that’s what we continually do,” he said.
Reach Jamie Ausk Crisafulli at rreditor@rangerreview.com.