{"id":9642,"date":"2018-02-09T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=9642"},"modified":"2018-02-09T02:28:18","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T08:28:18","slug":"enrollment-data-shows-more-of-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2018\/02\/enrollment-data-shows-more-of-the-same\/","title":{"rendered":"Enrollment data shows more of the same"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2017-18 public school certified enrollment tables are on the Iowa Department of Education&#8217;s website, but currently only accessible via magic. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.educateiowa.gov\/documents\/school-district-certified-enrollment\/2018\/01\/2017-2018-certified-enrollment-summary\">Fortunately, in this case, I have a magician&#8217;s touch.<\/a>\u00a0There are no big surprises, but a few small ones, likely brought on by the small sizes involved.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Overall, the state ticked 0.03% upward in enrollment, and at 486,264.3 is the highest since 2002-03. But if you throw out the top three gainers \u2014 Waukee, Ankeny, and Iowa City \u2014 the rest of the state combined for a 0.22% <em>drop<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Of 333 independent districts, 24 declined by more than 5 percent,\u00a0162 showed a decrease between 1 and 5 percent, 135 grew between 1 and 5 percent, and 15 grew by more than 5 percent.<\/li>\n<li>Of the districts with enrollment above 1000, the biggest percentage drops were Red Oak and Union. Numerically, Davenport was the biggest loser, down 256.5. Davenport has <em>lost<\/em> 1000 students in a decade.<\/li>\n<li>Van Meter is the only district with an enrollment under 1000 that increased its number by more than 40 (70.7).<\/li>\n<li>Waukee has grown so much that the flood of students isn&#8217;t enough to jump out percentage-wise; it &#8220;only&#8221; grew 5.4%. Numbers-wise, it&#8217;s still crushing everyone in sight. Enrollment <em>grew<\/em> by 572.3, toppling Dubuque as the state&#8217;s ninth-largest district with Waterloo next up. This year&#8217;s &#8220;absorbed this entire district&#8221; comparison has multiple options: Logan-Magnolia, East Buchanan, Clayton Ridge, or Cardinal.<\/li>\n<li>Gilmore City-Bradgate and Twin Rivers, two tiny districts that shared a high school until 2011, are outliers percentage-wise for most growth and most decline, respectively. The net changes were +28 and -19, but that will cause double-digit swings when their combined enrollment is under 300.<\/li>\n<li>Next door to those, West Bend-Mallard (where Twin Rivers is sending grades 7-12, despite only having the flimsiest of shared boundaries) is the next percentage decline outlier. Its 11% decline pushes certified enrollment below 300, a potential trigger for <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2017\/03\/is-mallard-school-a-sitting-duck\/\">closure of Mallard Elementary<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Janesville has benefited enough from being between Waterloo and Waverly that it has the problem of too little class space. This week, on the third try, it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kwwl.com\/story\/37463308\/2018\/02\/Thursday\/janesville-passes-86m-bond-for-school\">finally got a bond issue<\/a> for a new gym and more classroom space.<\/li>\n<li>For the first time in seven years, North Tama\u00a0<em>didn&#8217;t<\/em>\u00a0hit an all-time low,\u00a0but the increase was marginal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In sum, the suburban districts keep winning and the rural districts keep losing. For more exploration see <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2016\/06\/iowas-largest-enrollment-gainers-2001-2015\/\">these two<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2016\/06\/map-of-iowa-school-enrollment-changes-2001-2015\/\">blog posts<\/a> looking at long-term trends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2017-18 public school certified enrollment tables are on the Iowa Department of Education&#8217;s website, but currently only accessible via magic. Fortunately, in this case, I have a magician&#8217;s touch.\u00a0There are no big surprises, but a few small ones, likely &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2018\/02\/enrollment-data-shows-more-of-the-same\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9642"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9668,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9642\/revisions\/9668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}