Enrollment Decline Means Budget Cuts Likely For GCSD

With a drop in enrollment of 94 students for the 2024-2025 school year, the Glenwood Community School District is looking at budget reductions.

The district certified its 1,706 resident public school enrollment with the state in October. The drop in students represents a loss of $735,644 in state funding in the district’s coffers.

With that financial setback, the district is looking at all avenues of reducing its budget.

“We’re looking to cut the budget by about $750,000 to make sure we can stay in line with budget needs for the future,” said Glenwood Superintendent Nicole Kooiker. Kooiker was tabbed as the permanent superintendent earlier this month after taking over the position in July as the interim.

The district nor Kooiker was completely taken off guard by the drop. Although the final number did surprise her.

“It wasn’t anticipated there’d be a large enrollment drop because Glenwood’s enrollment has been pretty consistent. But I was anticipating, from what I saw, and what was occurring in the community, that we had a chance to be down in enrollment.”

Kooiker is attributing some of the attrition to the closing of the Glenwood Resource Center – the community’s largest employer – in June but not all, she said.

Open enrollments out of Glenwood into another district and students moving to virtual programs are also factors.

“There’s a variety of reasons,” she said. “I’ve also heard from parents who just aren’t happy with the services that we’ve offered or provided, or they’ve been bullied or picked on. I think this was a perfect storm with a variety of reasons.”

Whatever the reason for the enrollment dip, Kooiker said the district must be proactive to address its cause and its effect.

“The fact is, we are down those 94 public resident students, so we need to make a plan for budget reductions and what we’re going to do to try make sure we’re ensuring a high-quality education experience for each and every child in a safe and supportive experience, so they want to be in Glenwood.”

No definitive budget cuts have been announced, Kooiker said. But she favors a team approach and has already begun working with her administrative team as well as all the staff at each of the district’s buildings about ideas for how to trim the budget.

“I for sure think this is a collaborative process,” she said. “The nice thing is Glenwood has not had to do this for a while, and this isn’t uncommon across the state.”

One area Kooiker said that will be closely looked at is reducing potential travel costs. The district covers costs for travel for professional development for staff and while Kooiker fully supports staff development, she said cutting back or keeping those trainings more regionalized will be looked at.

The district also plans to address state mandated Area Education Agency funding for its special education and how each building does and does not use those dollars.

“We’re going to break those services down and work through a list at each building to know what they use and what they don’t use and what they can give up or not give up,” she said. “We don’t want to hurt the quality of education, and we want to keep this as far away from the classroom as possible but with that said we need to be diligent and good stewards of our finances.”

Staff reductions are not part of the budget cuts at this time, Kooiker said.

Flipping the enrollment drop is a complex question the district doesn’t have long to address with the budget process wrapping up in March. There is no magic wand to make students suddenly appear in the district, but Kooiker said Glenwood can and will do more to keep its residents students and draw in those outside its district borders.

One of her main focuses will be listening to families and getting input on how the district can provide the best education possible.

“We can’t make families have more children obviously, but we can make sure every student in Glenwood feels like they belong, and they want to be here,” she said.

The district is also working to get its career center program for high school students up and running by Fall 2025 while creating more alternative programming options for middle schools to attract students into the district.

The district is also researching offering its own virtual instruction program. Over 40 students have left the district to receive virtual instruction from a program outside Glenwood, according to Kooiker.

“I want each and every Glenwood student to feel like they belong in Glenwood and want to be a Ram,” she said.