As school districts are coming up on winter break, they’ve been taking a look at their certified enrollment numbers.

Panorama Schools Superintendent Shawn Holloway says that the district is continuing to see a decrease in student numbers.

“So at Panorama, our certified enrollment went down 43 students. So that was a major hit to our enrollment, which then in turn is a hit to our budget. I can’t say that it wasn’t expected. If you had asked me three years ago, I would have probably told you I think our enrollment is going to go down 30, 40 students. In the past two years we’ve graduated our last two really large classes. Classes that were both in the 70’s. Typically we’re bringing in 40 to 50 kindergarteners, preschoolers. So, it wasn’t expected. What was unexpected was last year our certified enrollment went up eight students when we were expecting it to go down 20.”

Holloway tells Raccoon Valley Radio he is comfortable with the district’s finances though, since they saw this trend coming and were able to budget and do some extra financial planning to try and offset the declining enrollment.