Certified enrollment down 29 students at NV

Nodaway Valley Community School District is down 29 students total and 14 students served, according to certified enrollment numbers shared at the Wednesday, Nov. 13 school board meeting.

Superintendent Paul Croghan said the district’s actual enrollment is 635.10 students, down from 664.28 a year ago.

“We know we lost 6-8 students due to moving to another school district [as a result of the tornado]. We’re still transporting a couple of kids, getting them to school because they live outside the district,” Croghan said. “We’ll continue to do that until they get housing inside the district.”

There are other factors that also can lead to the decrease in students. An above average size senior class graduated in May, however a “fair sized” kindergarten class also started, Croghan told the board.

“We like that 50 or 51, and we’re just below that,” Croghan said of the kindergarten class size.

Croghan explained that Orient-Macksburg, which is in a dissolution process while also hoping to whole grade share in the interim with Nodaway Valley, is serving 88 students this year. He hopes 50 or more could come to Nodaway Valley next year, however there could be more or less than that.

“Right now, enrollment has some ebb and flow in it for good reason,” Croghan said. “We’ll just have to watch it over the next couple of years and see where it goes from there.”

The enrollment report showed there are 51 resident students attending another public school and 28 non-resident students attending Nodaway Valley. There are 11 students in the PK4 statewide voluntary preschool program.

There are 11 students funded by an Education Savings Account (ESA), which is the result of a measure signed into law by Governor Kim Reynolds in January 2023 that makes state funding available to support the success of every student in Iowa. ESAs may be used by eligible families to cover tuition, fees and other qualified education expenses at accredited non-public schools in Iowa.

“I think we did a nice job of serving our communities and families to keep as many in the district as we could,” Croghan said. “We could have lost a lot more. We’ll continue to see that progress.”

In other action, the board:

• heard a report from the FFA chapter about their recent trip to the national convention

• approved a series of board policies

• approved the district’s developed special education services delivery plan, based on Department of Education recommendations

• discussed a grant opportunity for a possible safe room

• discussed a possible workshop and needs assessment, both from Iowa Association of School Boards (IASB)