Greene County Community Schools reported a 14 student increase in student enrollment for 2015-16 and Paton-Churdan reported a six student decrease on the Oct. 15 certified enrollment reporting deadline.
The certified enrollment is an annual report of enrolled students used for the Iowa school finance formula calculation. The count is taken every Oct. 1.
The certified enrollment in Greene County Schools is 1,298.8, an increase of 14.43 students from Oct. 1, 2014. (Special needs students are “weighted” depending on the extra services they require. Those weightings result in a count that appears to have un-whole students.)
Paton-Churdan reported certified enrollment of 198, compared to 204.2 for the 2014-15 school year.
The certified enrollment counts students who are residents of the district, not students in seats. With the availability of open enrollment, districts can ultimately receive funding for more or fewer than their certified enrollment. (The state sends the per pupil funding to the district of residence, and that district pays tuition or receives tuition for open enrolled students.)
Greene County Schools business manager Brenda Muir reports that compared to 2014-15, there are nine fewer resident students open enrolling out to other districts and eight more non-resident students open enrolling in, for a net gain of 17 students over last year.
Paton-Churdan administrators are pleased to have a net gain in open enrollments for the first time in many years. For 2015-16, there are 49 resident students open enrolled out to other districts (37 of them attend Greene County Schools), and 51 students open enrolled in to P-C (29 from Greene County) for a net gain of two students. Last year Paton-Churdan had a net loss of seven students and in 2013-14 the net loss was 12 students for open enrollment.
The number of students open enrolling from P-C to Greene County has remained fairly stable – that number was 36 in 2013-14. The number of students leaving Greene County for P-C has increased from 23 in 2013-14 to 29 students this year.
