The Greene County School District recently released its certified enrollment figures for the current school year.

Superintendent Tim Christensen says their enrollment was due to the Iowa Department of Education on October 15th. The report shows a decrease of about 41 students compared to the previous school year, with 1,158.41 students, compared to last year’s total of 1,199.64. The report takes into account the students that live within the district. The report is broken down into: students that open enroll into the districts, those that open enroll out, along with students that are homeschooled through the district.

Christensen is hoping the Department of Education does something to help school districts that have seen drops in enrollment due to issues with COVID-19.

“They are collecting data from all of the districts because the majority of the districts that I’ve spoken to, I think are down in enrollment, and a lot of it due to what we’ve got going on in the state and in the country. I think the state is planning to look at this situation. I don’t know whether they’ll make a decision to hold districts harmless, or what they’ll do. But hopefully they factor this in as we look at finances for next year.”      

Christensen adds that they will receive a 101-percent budget guarantee from the Department of Education. Certified enrollment is directly tied to per-pupil funding from the state, which Greene County’s shortfall amounts to about $291,000 decrease in funding. However, with the 101-percent budget guarantee, this allows school districts to make-up for the shortfall from this year’s budget for next year.