After two years of increased certified student enrollment at Marshalltown Schools, state data shows a decrease of 90 students for the current school year.

Certified enrollment is one of the major sources of funding for public schools. In Iowa, each public school student brings in $6,731 of funding to their districts.

The exact reason for the decrease is not yet known, but district officials said they hope to get more information by the end of the calendar year. Superintendent Theron Schutte said the certified enrollment is measured on Oct. 1 each year and may differ from the number of students actually served.

“In our district, we tend to get a lot of (students) in at all different junctures between the kindergarten– to 12th-grade spectrum,” he said.

Schutte said about a quarter of the student population is mobile, meaning they either leave or arrive at the district mid-school year. The district experienced a certified enrollment increase of about 140 students combined in the last two school years. The Iowa Department of Education is in charge of conducting the enrollment count each fall.

“We weren’t exactly sure what created that,” Schutte said of the previous increases. He said the district looked into possible reasons, but no major factors were found that could have brought more families to the district.

One possible factor in this year’s decrease in certified enrollment may be the July 19 tornado and its aftermath. Schutte said 14 of the 80 homes within the district that were condemned due to tornado damage contained Marshalltown students.

Schutte said the district will continue working with Mid-Iowa Community Action (MICA) to identify those students. Officials from MICA have been working with tornado victims on funding and finding support.

Property taxes and allowable growth from the state legislature are other major financial factors for school districts.

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Contact Adam Sodders at

(641) 753-6611 or

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