{"id":10698,"date":"2019-02-19T10:00:16","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T16:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=10698"},"modified":"2019-02-19T00:37:12","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T06:37:12","slug":"enrollment-analysis-2018-19-the-trends-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2019\/02\/enrollment-analysis-2018-19-the-trends-continue\/","title":{"rendered":"Enrollment analysis 2018-19: The trends continue"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Iowa Department of Education released enrollment numbers<\/a> for the 2018-19 school year, it announced<\/a>: “For the eighth year in a row, the number of students attending Iowa\u2019s public schools increased.” Strictly speaking, that’s true. But as long-time blog readers know, that’s not the story.<\/p>\n

The story is this: Overall public student enrollment is about 2640 higher in 2018-19 than in 2003-04. But enrollment in the entire state minus two districts<\/em> is down by more than 10,500 in those 15 years.
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Once again, Ankeny and Waukee<\/a> mask the magnitude of the decline in student enrollment in rural Iowa. This year, the entire enrollment of Calamus-Wheatland moved to Ankeny, while Waukee plugged a Starmont’s worth of students into a one-high-school district now larger than Waterloo.<\/p>\n

Fifteen years ago, those two accounted for 2.1% of the state’s total enrollment; now they make up for 4.8%. That’s a huge increase. For comparison, Cedar Rapids, the second-largest district in the state, accounts for just under 3.5%.<\/p>\n

There are 24 districts with a certified enrollment under 250; 11 will graduate seniors this year, including the smallest, Diagonal.<\/p>\n

Scaled on the four most recent school years:<\/p>\n