Creston plans for declining enrollment

Official enrollment statistics are out, with the Creston Community School District continuing in a steady decline.

On Oct. 1, the enrollment statistics for Iowa schools was certified by the state. Creston administration has been looking closely at the data since then, hoping to have an accurate projection for enrollment in upcoming years.

In students served, there was a decrease in 55.39 students from the last year, for a total of 1,259.69 students served. This differs from actual enrollment, which has a current total of 1,330.49 students. Supplemental state aid (SSA) is given based on actual enrollment.

The difference between these two numbers has a number of factors, including open enrollment and absenteeism. A total of 160 Creston students are open enrolled out of the district, with the most common schools being East Union, Lenox, Corning and CAM Virtual. Open enrolling into the district are 90 students, with the most common school districts being Orient-Macksburg, East Union, Corning and Lenox.

With SSA giving $7,826 per student to the school district, a drop in 55.39 students means a drop in revenue of $433,482.14. Superintendent Deron Stender said in Monday’s school board meeting it will likely be more of a decrease than that.

“That is not taking into consideration any labor negotiations, it’s not taking into consideration any typically budget operations, utilities, those types of things,” Stender said. “That figure is probably going to be closer to nearly $600k after all that is taken into consideration. Over the past five years, we’ve averaged 2.47% increase in SSA, so even if that happened, we anticipate that money would be eaten up probably through negotiations.”

Stender said enrollment has been slowly decreasing over the past eight years, but is only now becoming more of a worry. Last year, Creston graduated 134 seniors, while only 87 kindergarteners came in. While students from private schools often join the district their freshman year, it’s not enough to make up that difference.

“We haven’t been probably as transparent about that declining enrollment because you’ve done a good job managing it,” Stender told the school board. “We’ve been able to get by and we haven’t had to make those hard decisions. We’re at the point now where we’ve about run out of all the options. We’ll continue to do our job to do everything we can to safeguard and protect students, classrooms and our staff.”

Aside from graduating students, the district is losing many students to virtual learning or home schooling. The Lenox school district has a homeschool teacher, who helps coordinate with homeschool families. Stender said that was one option for Creston, but would take more research.

The school district is also looking to reduce the number of area students taking online classes.

“I’m trying to get the legislators to hear us,” Stender said. “During COVID, you came back and said you wanted schools to be in person. You wanted us to go back to school, open up our doors and bring kids in. Let’s get everybody back into our schools.”

In other school board news…

Positions on the school board were elected. Don Gee will serve as the president until November 2025. Galen Zumbach has served as president for the past year. Zumbach will serve as the vice president for the next year. Dr. Amanda Mohr has served as vice president for the past year. Billie Jo Greene will continue serving as the school board’s secretary and treasurer.

ECC and Elementary Principal Callie Anderson has secured a grant for the playground equipment at the new ECC. This, along with negotiation with the equipment provider, has resulted in a savings of $478,610 for the district.

Two new activity buses will be purchased from Hoglund Bus Company from the 2026 budget. Hoglund had the lowest bid at $327,870 for the two buses. Both are climate-controlled and have under storage.

The school board approved the November 2024 list of contracts and resignations:

Contracts: Sara Keeler, HS assistant girls wrestling coach; Abbi Hood, kindergarten teacher.

Resignations: Robert Stow, bus driver; Cori Wells, cook; Heather Brown, para; Katlin Winemiller, nurse (as of Dec. 20).