Chelsea School District: loss of students means less state funding

By Crystal Hayduk

The number of students in attendance within the Chelsea School District on Oct. 5, the fall count day of the 2016-17 school year, has declined from last year. According to Teresa Zigman, executive director of business and operations, “the district looks to be down approximately 56 students as compared to last year.”

The number is still unaudited, but based on a manual count on Oct. 5 of students in the buildings, plus alternative students, the district appears to have 2,409.9 students.

The preliminary budget had planned for an estimated loss of 20 students. Now a revised budget will have to account for the additional loss of 36 students, said Zigman.

This year’s additional $119 per student from the School Aid fund, totaling $7,545, is offset by the loss of students. In sum, the district is losing about $271,000.

School funding is based on a combination of two count days per school year – 10 percent from last February’s count and 90 percent from Oct. 5.

District administrators are looking for clear reasons for the decline in numbers, but one cause appears to be the difference between the number of outgoing seniors and incoming kindergarteners.

Marcus Kaemming, executive director of instruction, curriculum, and human resources, said there were 232 students in the Class of 2016, while there are only 151 students in the current kindergarten class.

Kaemming said that recent birth rates play into the smaller incoming classes. Data reported by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services indicates that the number of births in Washtenaw County began declining in 2007, with a slight increase in 2014. (http://www.mdch.state.mi.us/pha/osr/Natality/BirthsTrends.asp)

“We haven’t seen a large movement of school-aged children moving into the district,” said Kaemming. “All districts in Washtenaw County are Schools of Choice except Chelsea, so other schools have the ability to recover students when large classes leave the district.”

The next legislated count day will be Feb. 8, 2017.