USD 235 enrollment increase helps raise district's state funding

UNIONTOWN -- USD 235 Superintendent Randy Rockhold said that an enrollment increase is good news for his small, rural district.

Nearly 500 pre-school through 12th grade students are enrolled in two U-235 schools for the 2006-07 school year, an increase of almost 50 students since the 2004-05 school year, Rockhold said.

The district had an enrollment of 450 students during the 2004-05 school year, 480 students last year, and 495 students this year, according to district records. Up until last year, U-235 had seen a decline in enrollment each year since 1998, he said.

"Since all (state) funding is tied directly to student population, it is beneficial to have an increasing or stable enrollment," Rockhold said. "This declining enrollment coupled with no increase in per-pupil funding was extremely problematic and made it difficult to maintain needed programming. It is much easier to maintain and increase opportunities when enrollment trends are positive."

Rockhold said he attributes the increase in students to the quality of education that the district provides those students. Many high school graduates from the Uniontown district attend vocational schools or college after graduation, he said.

"We would like to believe the increases are a reflection of the quality educational opportunities we provide, but realize we are impacted by the reality that people can only live in an area if there is an avenue for them to have a livelihood," Rockhold said. "Most of our graduates are like most (others), and they pursue job opportunities where they (jobs) exist. We therefore experience what many rural areas experience. Many of our students grow up and relocate to an area where jobs are more readily available."

The Kansas Supreme Court recently approved a three-year $541 million school finance plan of which U-235 will receive about $138,000 in new money this school year.

The new plan, which aims its dollars primarily toward at-risk programs, special education programs, and students from low-income families across the state, also increases the base state aid per student in Kansas to more than $4,300, which affects various district programs and the district's full-time equivalency enrollment.

The FTE is a unit of measure calculated to determine how many actual full-time equivalent students are enrolled in a district. The FTE enrollment in U-235 was 430 during the 2004-05 school year, 455 during the 2005-06 school year, and is listed as 467 this year, Rockhold said.

Some U-235 students are only counted as part-time students, which also affects the funding that the district receives from the state.

"The increase in state base aid is impacted by each student we have enrolled," Rockhold said. "Pre-school and kindergarten students receive .5 weighting, but all other full-time students receive full funding."

U-235 also gets about $1 million each year in low enrollment weighting money each year -- money awarded by the state to Kansas districts with low enrollments.

"This year with our at-risk population, low enrollment weighting, vocational weighting, special education funding, and transportation, we will receive approximately $8,000 per FTE (student)," Rockhold said.

Funding from all of these sources, including state aid, results in the nearly $3.8 million budget that U-235 will operate on this year.

About 50 U-235 teachers provide educational services to about 250 pre-school through sixth grade students at West Bourbon Elementary School and more than 200 seventh through 12th grade students at Uniontown Junior Senior High School.