The Latest Look at Enrollment in Saline Area Schools

The estimated loss in enrollment for Saline Area Schools is less than expected.

At the Sept. 24 SAS Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Steve Laatsch gave a report on the latest enrollment numbers. Laatsch said the district is seeing a “smaller than anticipated loss in students.”

This past June, when setting the budget for this year, the district had anticipated a loss of 110 students. Now with the school year just over a month in, the district is estimating a loss of 59 students. This estimated comes from looking at the FTE count, which is what’s used to plan the state aid revenue the district will see.

According to SAS, in the fall of the 2023-24 school year, the district had a student FTE count of 4,763. This fall the number is estimated to be at 4,704. In the fall of 2020-21, the district was at 4,960.

The district has seen numbers decrease in the middle and high school levels while in the latest look there are some slight increases at the lower levels, such as kindergarten.

Laatsch said this change in estimates should result in an increase in the state aid this year of $490,000. The state aid per pupil amount for Saline is $9,608.

In looking at possible reasons as to why enrollment has decreased a bit, Laatsch cited a declining birth rate, more choices as to where people can send their child to school and affordability to live in the community. With the birth rate, he said since 2007, the nation has seen a 2 percent decrease on average each year.

At the end of his presentation, Laatsch looked at the question: what we have done to right-size the District?

He said their consistent goal with the driving question is: where are the opportunities to change the structure of our district to still maintain (or exceed) the outstanding student supports that we currently provide?

He said they are evaluating and being transparent at multiple levels, from the administrative team, to teaching and support staff to the community, as they continue to monitor enrollment and budget trends.

There have also been changes made that have achieved $750,000 in general fund recurring expenses, which includes a reduction in staff at the middle school and high school levels of seven staff members. It was noted this was not done through layoffs, but rather transferring and attrition. It was also noted, because of an increase, there was the addition of a couple of teachers; one at the elementary level and one in the area of ​​EL.

Laatsch said they will continue to monitor the numbers, but believe they are beginning to stabilize. School board Treasurer Brad Gerbe agreed with Laatsch that the district must continue to keep this in focus, but he said they are cautiously optimistic that the numbers are stabilizing.