Enrollment decline continues for District 88

System is

changing from 240 students per grade to approximately 140 per grade

By KREMENA TODOROVA

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Enrollment in New Ulm's public schools continues to decline, prompting officials to consider the future of a much smaller school system.

The 2004-05 school year started with about 60 fewer students than 2003-04, Superintendent Harold Remme told a district planning panel, the Long-Range Planning Task Force, last week.

An analysis of enrollment numbers for the past five years shows a steady overall decline of 3 to 4 percent a year, Remme said. The district lost 292 students -- the equivalent of an average-sized elementary school in Minnesota.

The downward trend has had financial implications already, noted Remme. It has resulted in the loss of about $2 million in state funding, or about 400,000 a year.

The negative impact is aggravated by the fact that the decline is not confined to any one grade. If the 59 students lost during each of the past five years were spread evenly among the 13 grades, the decline per grade would average 4.5 students. Since each grade has six or seven sections, each classroom would then lose less than one student. That makes it hard to cut staff without increasing class sizes.

Remme displayed numbers showing that the downward trend is expected to persist over the next ten years.

The school system is going through "a huge transition," he stressed. It is changing from a system with about 240 students per grade, to a system with about 140 students per grade.

The year 2006-07 is projected to be the last year of grades with 200 or more students each. The year 2011-12 is expected to be the last of the 150-plus grade sizes.

(Projections get somewhat murkier after 2009-10, because analysts have to work with unborn numbers.)

The enrollment decline raises hard questions, Remme said. For example, planners need to examine how and where educational services would be delivered. They should consider whether the district should close buildings -- and, if so, what grades should be clustered in what buildings, what modifications should be made to facilities, and what alternative uses should be considered for vacant facilities. More broadly, Remme said, planners need to consider what is more important -- a service delivery that is most effective or one that is most efficient -- and whether it is possible to balance effectiveness and efficiency.

The Long-Range Planning Task Force, a panel of school board members, educators and lay volunteers with advisory powers, is expected to develop a report addressing service delivery issues by the spring of 2005.