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More students attending Marshalltown School District

The Marshalltown School District experienced an increase in the amount of students enrolled for the 2019-20 school year. The difference between this year and the 2018-19 school year is 72 students.

At the regular Monday Marshalltown School Board meeting, the director of business operations, Paulette Newbold, explained the difference between certified enrollment and served enrollment.

“When we talk about certified enrollment, this is what our funding is based off for the coming year,” Newbold said. “There’s also served enrollment and that number is residents we are serving plus our open enrolled.”

The certified enrollment for the 2019-20 school year is 5,420 and served enrollment is 4,949. The 2018-19 enrollment was 5,346 certified and 4,877 served. Newbold said the number of students enrolled determines the amount of money the district receives from the state every year. She said the Marshalltown School District is the 15th largest school district in Iowa.

“More good news for the district is that our certified enrollment was actually up as is our served enrollment,” Newbold said. “You might recall a year ago our enrollment was down due to tornado issues and such and we have rebounded and recovered very nicely this year.”

Superintendent Theron Schutte said the district tracked all of the students who were taken out of the district following the tornado. He said they did not just go to neighboring school districts, but rather all over the United States and the northern hemisphere.

“We were pleasantly surprised to see as quick a rebound, post tornado, as we did with our student enrollment knowing that housing in Marshalltown is still a challenge,” Schutte said. “The growth of our certified and served-student count will positively impact our funding for fiscal year 2021 and we’re hopeful that our state legislature will provide an adequate state supplemental aid increase during the upcoming legislative session. The sooner they make that decision, the sooner we can accurately determine our budget for next school year. This increase will enable us to come off the budget guarantee that resulted from last year’s declining enrollment. We also experienced a decline in our open enrolled out numbers which indicates to me that people are truly evaluating the options to determine where the best programs and opportunities are available for their students.”

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Contract Lana Bradstream

at 641-753-6611 or

lbradstream@timesrepublican.com

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