Enrollment drops at Mt. Pleasant schools

Certified enrollment in the Mt. Pleasant school district has dropped again.

Superintendent John Henricksen reported to the school board Monday night that the district's certified enrollment dropped by just over 44 students from 2019.

Henriksen's report showed that the 2020 certified enrollment is 1,858.4 compared to 1,935.7 in 2019, a 2.3 percent decline.

The drop is double what it was from 2018 to 2019.

'Being down 44 students in our certified count, we haven't had numbers like that,” Henriksen said. 'Some of it is, in part, due to COVID. We'll have to keep an eye on that.”

The 44-student drop translates to a potential budget loss of more than $300,000 for the district next year.

'We'll have to see what the Legislature will do,” Henriksen said. 'I'm hopeful that the Legislature will recognize that some of these things were out of our control.”

The breakdown of the certified enrollment show 1,727 resident students attending the district, 127 students open-enrolling out of the district and 135 open-enrolling into the district.

In 2019, those numbers were 1,796 resident students attending from the district, 100 open-enrolling out and 133 open-enrolling into the district.

The breakdown includes 37.5 students counted in the 4-year-old pre-kindergarten program this year compared to 50 last year.

Henriksen said that each of the pre-K students is counted as four-10ths (.4) of a student.

Enrollment in the district has seen a decline over the past five years.

'The five-year trend on served students is down about 9 percent,” Henriksen said.

The trend is still ahead of the five-year 10 percent downward trend of the Great Prairie Area Education Association's 32 member schools.