Southwest Schools: 30 student loss is big jump for corporation
Superintendent Mike Eineman revealed in Thursday night’s school board meeting that the Southwest Dubois County School Corporation has 30 less students this spring semester.
The state completes an ADM (average daily membership) count in September and February to determine how many students are enrolled in the school corporation’s schools. According to Eineman, the school corporation typically loses three to four students in the second semester or February count. The 30 students was a surprise.
Eineman told the board he will be concerned if the trend continues. He acknowledged the ebb and flow of student numbers and pointed out that those numbers usually go down in the spring semester. However, it’s more than they expected this year.
“That’s unusual for us because we’ve always been steady and either increased or maybe just lost a couple at a time,” he says.
Those 30 students account for about $75,000 — half of the $5,200 per student the corporation would receive annually — in state funding to the school corporation’s general fund. The general fund pays for supplies and teachers salaries and benefits.
Since those students were counted in the fall semester, the school corporation received half of that funding per student.
The school board will continue to monitor the student numbers over the next several semesters to see if this drop is just an anomaly or a serious trend.
Also after the meeting last night, Eineman addressed two personnel changes in the Southwest system.
First, faculty member Al Mihajlovits announced his retirement last October at the end of this school year. Al’s career spans 40 years and has included teaching and administration positions. Eineman says that Mihajlovits will be greatly missed.
Second, Middle School principal Annette Altmeyer has resigned and will be returning to the classroom to teach.
Finally, Eineman says that in spite of having to cancel classes due to inclement weather in the past couple of weeks, they still have one snow day remaining on their calendar.
The last day of school is May 19th. Graduation is on May 20th for Southridge seniors.
Edit: Added that Eineman reported losing three to four student in the spring semester was normal. Also, the average daily membership is taken in February and September each year. This is a count of students that is used to adjust the state’s funding formula for a school corporation. Eineman did not state why the loss of students occurred but did state they typically lose student because parents move from the area.
I agree on learning the reasons for losing 30 students from the fall to now – what’s up? Hard to imagine that question didn’t come up from the media (to Eineman) – such an obvious one – but the media is the media. What’s a normal or average loss during this time in past years and where does this year rate or compare – higher, lower – ?
Another issue is the counting in the fall – how was that done? Were students actually present to begin with – counted from actual attendance records – or was the count a phantom count based on anticipated enrollment? That could be part of the lost 30, along with a few move-outs and other changes. But 30?