Superintendent's Corner for December 1, 2018

North Linn Enrollment Update - I thought you might be interested in how the enrollment count faired for this year for North LInn.

As you are probably aware Certified Enrollment is an annual report of enrolled resident students used for the Iowa School Finance Formula calculation.  This is the report that generates our student count for budget purposes ($6,780 per student). The certified enrollment count is taken on the first day of October every year, or the following Monday if the first falls on a weekend. The data collection is located electronically via the department of education and is due no later than October 15.

The table below illustrates the North Linn Certified Enrollment Report.   You will note from the comparison on the enrollment summary that North Linn’s total enrollment on line 7 has increased 9.00 students.  4 of those students were an increase in resident pupils, 5 of those students were an increase in students who enrolled out of the district.  

Although there were some decreases and increases, for the most part the “out” stayed steady (increased by 5) and the total number of students served increased by 2. So perhaps compared to some previous years the count holding steady should be taken as a positive for the North Linn School District.  
 

The enrollment trends for the District for the last 15 years has been a loss that has averaged around 11 students annually. The certified enrollment for 2017-2018 was 609.2 and in 2018-2019 was 618.2.  

Over the last 5 years open enrollment trends have increased 4 students annually.  When parents open enrolled their students out of North Linn we ask them the reason why and the most common response is out of convenience.  With North Linn’s district being 151 square miles, it’s oblong shape, and being located in Benton, Buchanan, Delaware, and Linn counties a neighboring district might be more convenient for a family.   

While the common reason for open enrollment loss seems to be convenience.  Currently there are 98 students who open enroll to other districts. Of that 98 students, 45 of them open enroll to CPU and 30 open enroll out to Central City.  One theory of the large loss to these two districts is access to child care and early childhood programs. In the coming months the district would like to survey our patrons about early childhood programs to get your input on potential needs and possible programs that the district could provide.  As always feel free to stop in if you should have any thoughts or questions.