By Crystal Hayduk
Chelsea School District (CSD) saw 2,269 students present on Oct. 2, Michigan’s Fall Count Day, according to Superintendent Mike Kapolka.
This number is unverified until the audited count is released in March.
The verified counts from the 2023-24 school year are as follows: Fall 2023 – 2,275.93; Spring 2024 – 2,263.01. Student counts with decimal places occur because some students attend CSD part-time, thereby counting as part of a whole number.
An accurate student count is vital to the district’s budget, because state funding is based on the number of students enrolled. Michigan’s foundation allowance is currently $9,608 per pupil, the same as last year.
Nicole Darby, CSD’s chief financial officer, had projected the 2024-25 preliminary budget with assumptions of a student count of 2,240 and an increase of $241 to the foundation allowance. She and her team will need to adjust for the 0% increase in foundation allowance in the amended budget.
The money districts receive each school year is based on a blend of two count days. The State Aid for 2024-25 will be calculated using 10% of the student count from Feb. 14, 2024 and 90% of the Oct. 2 count.
The district’s Fall Count includes 151 School of Choice students (SOC) – 44 of those students are newly enrolled this year.
CSD first began accepting limited SOC students in 2018. The SOC policy (po5113) was last updated in December 2022, but is reviewed annually by the CSD Board of Education. The policy stipulates, “At no time will the non-resident student school of choice enrollment exceed 10% of the total [CSD] enrollment based on the annual fall count.
There are eight international students and three foreign exchange students in CSD this year.
The number of non-resident children of district employees total 27. They are not included in the SOC numbers.
“Our targeted goal this year was to be as close to ‘flat’ as possible to our Spring 2024 student count, which was 2,263,” said Kapolka. “Given our early projections for the Fall 2024 count, we achieved this goal.”
The next legislated count day will be Feb. 12, 2025.
