Enrollment down in Marion schools
Staff writer
Preliminary, unaudited figures show 619 students attending schools in Marion-Florence USD 408 this fall, Martin Tice, business manager and board clerk for the district, has reported.
This includes 329 at Marion Elementary, kindergarten through sixth grade; 100 at Marion Middle School, grades 7 and 8; and 210 at Marion High School, grades 9-12.
The seeming disparity, in that these three total 639, is explained, Tice said, by the fact that kindergartners are counted as one-half a full-time student each, since they attend school for a half-day.
So, there are 329 at MES, but that includes 40 in kindergarten. So the FTE (full-time equivalent) head count for the district comes to 619.
This is about 65 fewer students than a year ago in USD 408. The total a year ago, Tice said, was 690 1/2, but that included about six pre-school students, and pre-schoolers are not included in the preliminary count for this school year.
Enrollment at MES is down 6 from a year ago; at MMS it's down by 17 1/2 students, and at the high school, it's down by 28 1/2 .
The totals will not be official until the state of Kansas audits them, sometime in the spring, Tice said.
The lower enrollments will not affect the district's total in state funds received so much this first year, but next year it will be worse, Tice said.
For this year, after the state audit is performed, the district will be allowed to use last year's FTE enrollment figures or the average of the three years preceding this one, 2000-2003, Tice said, whichever is greater.
But next year "we'll see a big change. It's (enrollment FTE count) what we base our budget on," he said.
