Iowa’s school districts start enrollment in the 2020s the same way as previous decades \u2014 with some of the rich getting richer and many of the poor getting poorer.<\/p>\n
Total Iowa public school certified enrollment, rounded, is palindromic: 490,094.<\/p>\n
About one-tenth of the state’s districts \u2014 32 of 327, North Scott and up, all 3000 or greater \u2014 have 51.6% of the state’s public students.\u00a0Forty districts lost 20 or more students.<\/p>\n
North Tama’s certified enrollment (446) was unchanged, and that’s good enough to be in the top half, growth-wise. If you add together every school North Tama’s size and smaller, you get 79 districts with about 24,000 students \u2014 approximately the same as Waukee and Ankeny put together.<\/p>\n
Those two suburbs continue to add a small district’s worth of students every year. This year Waukee’s growth of 504 matches BCLUW as the 99th-largest district in the state; Ankeny’s 279 is about that of Tri-County. Elsewhere, North Tama’s entire enrollment equivalent moved to Sioux City, to create the latter’s largest total of this century.<\/p>\n
I would argue that this continuous flow to certain districts is affecting other measurements \u2014 for example, the number of students participating in sports. The top 20 districts in 2000-01 had nearly 38% of Iowa’s public school students and 34 varsity football teams. The top 20 districts in 2019-20 have nearly 43% of Iowa’s public school students \u2014 and 36 varsity football teams.<\/p>\n
There are kids who might have been a second-stringer in a small school but plain aren’t out for the sport. Then, of course, there’s specialization (say, a girl no longer being double-counted in basketball and softball because she spends the summer on a non-school team), playing a more niche sport that’s only available in the biggest schools, etc.<\/p>\n
To put the growth inequality one more way around: Between 2015 and 2019, statewide certified enrollment grew by 5716. Five districts \u2014 Waukee, Ankeny, Iowa City, Dallas Center-Grimes, and Pleasant Valley \u2014 grew by a combined number larger than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iowa’s school districts start enrollment in the 2020s the same way as previous decades \u2014 with some of the rich getting richer and many of the poor getting poorer. Total Iowa public school certified enrollment, rounded, is palindromic: 490,094. About … Continue reading