Enrollment is declining in Iowa’s public schools. Here’s how district leaders are responding

• The Iowa Department of Education projects public schools' certified enrollment to decline by 3.5 percent between 2020-2030
• Enrollment in many Iowa public schools -- most of which enroll fewer than 2,000 students -- is stagnant or declining, creating financial challenges
• Closing schools to lessen financial strain and creating innovative programming to compete are two solutions

Iowa schools — particularly those in districts with fewer than 1,000 students — are the “lifeblood” of their communities. But as districts across the state see continued decline in enrollment, school leaders are making changes to mitigate financial losses and attract and retain the students.

“We’re not a property rich district … We’ve got kids to serve and we love them dearly,” said Brandon Borseth, superintendent of the Tipton Community School District. “We have to be able to discern where those enrollment trends are headed because you could put yourself in a difficult position really quickly.”

Enrollment is “what sets the budget,” said Chris Coffelt, shared superintendent of the Central Decatur and Lamoni school districts, which have a combined enrollment of about 850 students. “We hope for the best, and we’re preparing for what we know are going to be challenging times.”

Even stagnant enrollment challenges schools’ budgets as inflation outpaces per pupil state aid — the amount of money allocated to school districts that’s used to pay staff salaries and benefits and fund educational programs — which has averaged 2 percent growth a year for the last 14 years.

School leaders are turning their focus to innovative opportunities, modern facilities, and career-connected learning as competition for students increases between public schools through open enrollment, and with non-public and charter schools.

Over a 10-year period, from the 2020-21 academic year to 2029-30, the state projects public schools’ certified enrollment will decline by about 3.5 percent.

But the change in the number of students served differs wildly by school district. Some — like the College Community School District in Cedar Rapids — expect to see growth as industry flourishes and housing booms.

Others are struggling to rightsize their budget when even one less student could have a big impact on some of the state’s smallest school districts.

Almost half of Iowa schools are using the budget guarantee provision in the Iowa School Finance Formula, which is available when their enrollment results in a lower funding amount than the previous year.

A total of 157 Iowa school districts are on budget guarantee for the 2025-26 school year. That’s 43 more schools than were on budget guarantees for the 2019-20 school year, before the pandemic. And it’s an increase of 17 districts from the 2024-25 school year.

The provision ensures districts experiencing a shortfall in funding can make up the deficit through a budget adjustment.

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More competition between public, private and charter schools

An extreme example of declining enrollment is the Davenport Community School District, which is projected to lose 749 students between 2021 and 2031 because of falling birth rates and open enrollment trends. Current estimates are that the district could potentially lose 300 students a year until 2030 when enrollment is expected to stabilize.

That will create excess capacity in Davenport’s schools for between 3,142 and 5,617 students by 2031.

The state’s projected certified enrollment for the Davenport district is more dire, showing a projected decline in certified enrollment of 2,272 students between 2020 and 2030.

Certified enrollment is an annual report of enrolled resident students used for the Iowa School Finance Formula calculation. It does not include the number of students open enrolled into or out of a district.

The Davenport district’s enrollment study was completed before Education Savings Accounts were enacted. ESAs provide state funding for students to attend a non-public school. Nearly 28,000 Iowa students used ESAs during the 2024-25 school year.

A charter school also plans to open its doors in Davenport to K-6th graders this year, with plans to expand up to 12th grade, further increasing competition for students in the area.

Charter schools are tuition-free schools that are publicly funded, but independently run under an approved charter with the state. In Iowa, charter schools receive per-pupil aid from the state, just like public schools.

Public schools also compete among themselves through open enrollment, where a student can enroll in a district outside of their residency.

In an effort to plan for the future and “rightsize” facilities, the Davenport district is consolidating and closing three elementary schools.

"Rightsizing" a school district refers to adjusting the district's operations — often including facilities, staffing and resources — to align with enrollment and financial realities, with the goal of improving efficiency and addressing budget deficits.

The facility plan also includes construction of two new middle schools to replace existing outdated schools, new athletic facilities at one of the high schools, and new turf fields at the high schools.

Davenport district spokeswoman Sarah Ott, in an email to The Gazette, said the district will begin the second phase of developing the master facility plan this year. It will include a discussion about how the district can most effectively align programming to meet the needs of students.

“In an era of school choice, the Davenport Community School District believes that the best way to stay competitive is to offer a world class education and extracurricular opportunities that families and students want to choose. This is why the district has invested heavily in new evidence-based curriculum resources over the past five years as well as continually investing in cocurricular and extracurricular opportunities for students,“ Ott said.

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Projected declining statewide enrollment

The number of births in Iowa has been declining since 2014, with the only year-to-year increase over that period in 2021, after the pandemic, said Heather Doe, spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Education.

“The cumulative effect of smaller kindergarten classes ‘replacing’ larger exiting 12th grade classes leads to projected declining statewide enrollment,” Doe said in an email to The Gazette.

The state’s smallest school district, Diagonal in southwest Iowa, has a certified enrollment of about 90 students and the largest district — Des Moines Independent Community School District — has about 31,000 students.

Most of Iowa’s 327 public school districts enroll fewer than 2,000 students.

Larger and growing suburban districts may hire a demographer to analyze population data, so they can make informed decisions.

Smaller districts don’t have the budget to hire a demographer, “but can see the writing on the wall by looking at the county’s birth rates and sense what is coming,” said Margaret Buckton, with Iowa School Finance Information Services.

The state’s enrollment projections are calculated by the Iowa Department of Education Bureau of Performance and Analytics using certified enrollment data and live birth data from the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services.

Enrollment projections are based on trends observed in the number of students moving from grade to grade in certified enrollment.

Kindergarten enrollment counts are projected using historical ratios of past estimates of the number of births in each school district in relation to past enrollment of kindergarten students five years later.

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Small schools ‘lifeblood’ of Iowa

The Tipton district served 809 students during the 2024-25 school year. About 70 of those students were open enrolled into the district or attending the district through a whole-grade sharing agreement with the Bennett Community School District.

The district has a one-way sharing agreement where Bennett sends its students to Tipton for 7-12th grade and Bennett only offers preschool-6th grade. Whole grade sharing often is used as way to address declining enrollment.

Borseth said the district has a financial “cushion” with a 17 percent solvency ratio last year, a metric that measures long-term financial health and stability.

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“That’s a healthy position to be in, especially when you take into account decline in our enrollment. Having that there allows us to not have to make broad, sweeping cuts,” he said.

Over the last few years, there have been about 100 fewer resident students in the Tipton district, according to certified enrollment data from the Iowa Department of Education. The state projects Tipton to decline by another 150 students over the next five years.

“That projection feels a little more severe to me,” Borseth said.

The district does have a larger kindergarten class this year, expanding to offer three sections of the grade. Borseth said until they’re able to talk to families, they won’t know where the influx of students is coming from.

The district is undergoing a facility assessment to address aging buildings in hopes of attracting families to the community. One of the investments is a new gym floor for varsity athletes to “showcase their skills,” Borseth said.

There’s also new lighting in the elementary school, which people may not notice, but “you’ll feel differently when you walk into those classrooms,” he said.

The Tipton district is expanding its work-based learning opportunities with the addition of a nurse aid class in January — taught by the high school nurse — and 12 welding booths added to the high school.

Projections don’t include unique circumstances in Iowa’s communities

Adam Kurth, chief financial officer for the Iowa City Community School District, said state projections don’t include the unique economic circumstances in each school community.

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The Iowa City Community School District is forecasting a decline of about 200 students over the next five years, based on demographer projections in February. This is smaller than the state’s projected decline in certified enrollment of 400 students over the next five years.

The district’s certified enrollment is about 14,550.

“Forecasts show a more aggressive decline than is realistic for us,” Kurth said. “I do try to be the voice of reason about tamping down any hopes for dramatic growth based on housing development, which we have a lot of. I have a hard time feeling really confident about our projections, much less about the state’s projections.”

Kurth said based on their own projections, the district expected a decline in enrollment for the 2024-25 school year, but it’s actually seeing an increase of 171 students.

“That makes me hopeful. A few years of bucking projected trends would be instructive and inform future projections,” Kurth said.

More districts save on sharing school leadership

Sharing superintendents and other administrative roles is one way Iowa school districts are saving money. The number of shared superintendents in Iowa has more than tripled in the last 20 years. During the 2024-25 school year, 122 districts had a shared superintendent.

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Central Decatur is declining by 10 to 20 students each year. “We have larger graduating classes and are projecting smaller incoming classes,” Coffelt said.

Central Decatur and Lamoni — which share Coffelt as superintendent — have more students open enrolling into the district than out, but “that gap is closing,” he said.

For many families in rural Iowa, open enrollment is driven by geography — they might live physically closer to a neighboring school district than to their resident school district, Coffelt said.

Coffelt — who has been superintendent of the two districts for 14 years — said the districts’ school boards don’t “shy away” from talk about consolidating. Their main priority is “continuing to provide a quality education for kids,” he said.

“There’s discussion about what would be triggers that would initiate a conversation about combining districts … We haven’t had to look at that conversation too closely at this point in time, but it’s certainly something we talk about,” Coffelt said.

“Rather than bury our heads in the sand and be ignorant of our current reality, the boards do get together on an annual basis — if not twice a year — to talk about the future and what opportunities there may be to partner together.”

Coffelt echoed Tipton Superintendent Borseth, saying schools are “the lifeblood of a community.”

“When schools go away, I think people see it as a threat to the community,” Coffelt said. “Schools are the community’s identity, something the community is proud of. It’s seen as life.”

Open enrollment means competition between public schools

Many public school superintendents The Gazette spoke with are seeing a net increase of students open enrolling into their district, subsidizing the decline in resident students. But the school leaders noted those students are being pulled from neighboring public school districts.

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“That’s a double-edged sword for our neighboring districts because that means they’re losing kids,” said Shane Knoche, shared superintendent of the Bennett and Calamus-Wheatland school districts.

Knoche said even one less student a year in a district the size of Bennett can create financial challenges. Bennett had a certified enrollment of 165 students during the 2024-25 school year.

Bennett serves about 70 students in its elementary school. Students attend 7-12th grade in either Tipton or Durant through two separate sharing agreements.

“It seems like we have a lot of new babies, so I hope that’s true. What I’ve seen in both districts is it seems the amount of school-aged students is shrinking. That puts a lot of stress on ensuring we have a good product that open enrolling is an option,” Knoche said.

Although they don’t educate middle and high school students in the town of Bennett, Knoche said maintaining a school in the community is vital.

“My belief is in order to keep your town strong, you need a strong school in your community,” he said.

Knoche said he is working with Tipton and Durant school leaders, so Bennett can host more athletic events and bring the community into their school. They are starting conversations with city officials to turn former baseball and softball fields into a walking path with pickleball courts, a soccer field and a prairie.

“It’s important to work together as much as we can to make the school and community vibrant. You’re not going to get new people moving in if you don’t have a school,” Knoche said.

Critical for some, but not an emergency

Rob Schwartz is CEO of RSP & Associates, which helps school districts across the Midwest plan for the future by analyzing their enrollment trends. Schwartz said he’s worked with more than 50 school districts in the last two years.

“What we see in Iowa is not different from other states where we work,” he said.

Families are choosing to wait longer and having fewer children than previous generations, impacting the number of children in schools, Schwartz said. People also are moving from rural areas to cities for the lifestyle and amenities.

Schwartz said for some school districts, “rightsizing” is “critical.” “Some districts have more time than others,” he said.

“I don’t feel like this is an emergency. Change is always happening, and now we have time to figure out what’s best for students, for communities and have honest conversations about what things you can do differently,” Schwartz said.

“Differently” could include more robust educational programs and opportunities to entice students to enroll in a district, and facilities that enhance staff and student experiences, Schwartz said.

Keeping cuts ‘away from the classroom’

The Burlington Community School District expects to have 108 fewer students enrolled this year than it did last year. The district’s total enrollment is about 2,900.

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“It’s not anything you’re doing wrong, it’s just less people in southeast Iowa,” Superintendent Robert Scott said.

Five years ago, before Scott joined the district as its leader, he said the district worked to “rightsize” and closed an elementary school.

“If you’re not looking at a five-year projection, you’re going to be caught sideways where you’ll be unable to make adjustments. If you’re looking at projections, you could minimize the impact to student programming,” Scott said.

This year, Burlington schools closed an auxiliary building that housed the district’s technology department, homeschool program and online school, saving money on infrastructure costs. Those resources were moved to another building in the district.

“We always try to keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as possible. That’s not always possible, but that’s our goal,” Scott said.

While Scott said it looks like Burlington is growing with new restaurants and businesses opening and apartment complexes being built, the city’s population is declining. The city's population is estimated to be around 23,320 in 2025, which is a decline of about 2.5 percent since the 2020 census.

Scott said the district will be able to absorb the decline in enrollment because of “good budgeting” and 29 percent in unspent balance, which is the most important indicator of the financial health of the district, according to Iowa School Finance. “We’ve got dollars available to us,” he said.

Unspent balance is the amount of unused general fund capacity to spend on behalf of students, or spending authority, left over at the end of the fiscal year that is carried over into the next fiscal year.

The district also is innovating, investing $50 million into the high school to enhance educational programs and bring the facility up to date.

Outdated facilities ‘eating away’ at district funds

Kevin Seney, superintendent of the East Marshall Community School District, said they have seen a “dramatic decline” in student enrollment, both certified and total enrollment served, since fiscal year 2017.

Outdated facilities are “eating away” at the district’s funds, Seney said. The district hopes to propose a bond referendum this fall that would fund improvements to current facilities, as well as new construction.

“When we think about modernizing facilities and creating learning environments for kids and teachers, we’re way behind the curve on providing these amenities,” Seney said. The district is pouring money into buildings instead of teachers and programs and “offering things our neighbors have that we currently don’t.”

Today, the district’s total enrollment is 565, and almost 100 of those students are open enrolled into the district, Seney said. But, he said, fewer students are open enrolling in and more are open enrolling out.

Since 2020, the district has declined in certified enrollment from 576 to 489. State projections estimate the district will to continue to decline, reaching 387 by the 2029-30 school year.

Despite the challenges, Seney stressed the importance of “projecting confidence” about the district’s future.

“The benefits of being in a small district is kids are known. They’re not just a number. They have good connections with adults all the way through the system,” Seney said. “You can model a scarcity mindset and the doom and gloom scenarios in your community, talk about reorganization, layoffs, cuts, shrinking.

“I would prefer to live in the mindset of abundance and optimism,” he said. “We have great families that support our school districts, great teachers who have been here for a long, long time who want to see this place succeed.”

Some districts are growing

The College Community School District anticipates a 2.6 percent growth, or 149 additional students, in its preschool-12th grade over the next five years. This would bring the total number of students in the district to 5,885.

“I have this feeling analysis might be a little low on the enrollment growth. I also know it’s going to be from relocation, not from births,” Superintendent Doug Wheeler said.

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The state’s projections — which don’t include preschool — show the district’s 2029-30 certified enrollment to be 4,923 — almost 1,000 fewer students than the district anticipates.

The district began contracting with a demographer — RSP & Associates — after the pandemic to get a better understanding of enrollment trends. It’s a “driver” for how the district budgets for the future.

“Our demographic study does show our birth rate going down, but we pick up students due to relocation because of businesses coming to our area and housing developments in process or planned,” Wheeler said.

Although the College Community School District is well-positioned for growth, Wheeler is well aware of the enrollment challenges facing many of Iowa’s public schools.

“You’ve got to be growing in order to break even,” Wheeler said. “Even if enrollment is stable, that’s going to create budget challenges. This is my 25th year in education. For all of those 25 years, money has been a concern.”

Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com