Greene County Schools in the 2021-22 school year recouped some but not all the enrollment lost in the previous year.
School superintendent Tim Christensen shared the district’s certified enrollment at a work session preceding the Oct. 20 regular school board meeting. Total enrollment is 1,187, an increase of 28 students over 2020-21. That’s still 13 students shy of 2019-20 enrollment.
“That’s good news,” Christensen said. “We were down 41 students last year, so we’re still not where we were two years ago, but obviously being up rather than down is a positive.
He projected that if the state legislature provides a 2 percent increase in supplemental aid, Greene County would see a $200,000 increase in state funding.
Based on enrollment, Christensen said he would not recommend the board offer an early retirement incentive for 2022 staff retirements. That has been used in the past to trim the budget.
Also at the work session, the board began discussion of changing graduation requirements.
The district now offers two diplomas – a regular diploma requiring 58 credits, and a basic diploma requiring 42 credits.
Students must demonstrate a need to graduate with the lesser number of credits. Factors considered include a transfer into the district that resulted in a loss of credits; a future loss of residence; a need to provide financial support for himself or his others; pregnancy or childcare challenges; academic struggles early in high school; or a lack of family support. The request must be approved by a committee including the building principal and guidance counselor, a parent/guardian if the student is younger than 18, a school board member, a teacher, and others.
High school principal Brian Phillips said eight or so students per class receive a basic diploma.
However, the Iowa Department of Education requires districts to have only one diploma. “Every student that comes to school, when they walk in the first day, needs to know what target they’re shooting for. It shouldn’t be something that a committee decides what they’re shooting for,” Christensen explained. “There needs to be one number (of credits), one diploma.”
He said the challenge is that if the number is too low, getting a diploma is too easy and many students could graduate at the end of their junior year or graduate early. As the same time, though, “the number can’t be so high that we can’t get everybody to that number.”
He presented a proposal that 48 credits be required for graduation as a starting point for discussion.
School counselor Kyle Kinne said he doesn’t know of other schools that require as much as Greene County’s current requirements. According to principal Phillips, many schools require 48 credits.
School board members Steve Fisher and Catherine Wilson both said they worry about how lowering the number would look. “It you drop it from 58 to 48, there’s going to be a lot of people in the community that don’t understand the intricacies… It just doesn’t appear well,” Fisher said.
“I don’t want to see us lower our standards. How do we as a school do a better job of making sure that every kid as a freshman knows he can attain whatever number it is we decide,” Wilson said.
Wilson also said she wants more information before making a decision, including whether students are hindered by not passing core classes or if they’re slowed down trying to get enough total credits.
Board members Fisher and Steve Karber also asked what lowering the number of credits would do to enrollment in elective and upper level classes.
The first reading of a revised graduation requirements was on the agenda as new business for the regular meeting. Christensen said during the work session that he wasn’t ready to ask for approval of the proposed policy, and that much more discussion was needed.
It’s a desk audit by the Iowa Department of Education slated for December that brought to the fore Greene County’s two diplomas. Curriculum director Karen Sandberg is preparing now for the audit. She said the district will be found non-compliant with state regulations following the audit. If no changes are made within a year after the finding of non-compliance, the district can be penalized.
Changes to the graduation requirements will not be made before the December audit, but they will be in place before the review 2022 review.
In business at the regular meeting, the board held a public hearing on the transfer of $75,000 in unused funds from the Home School Assistance fund to the Title I reading and pre-kindergarten funds. No comments were heard and the board approved the transfer.
The board approved early graduation requests from Madilyn VanPelt (anticipated after first trimester) and Lucy Dudley, Haleigh Dzuris, Carissa Keenan, Haven Keller, Madison Knight, Breanna Madison and Madison Moore (anticipated after second trimester).
The board approved fundraiser requests as follows: FFA, fruit, meat and cheese sale, Nov. 1-12; activities department, Greene County shirts, ongoing; National Honor Society, bake sale, Nov. 2-4; girls basketball team, Free-throw-A-Thon, Nov. 13; and seventh grade social studies, various fundraisers to benefit a water project, Oct. 25-Nov 5.
