Grant School District has lost more than 100 students and nearly $1 million in state funding over the last several years.

CANYON CITY — Enrollment in Grant School District has dropped by more than 100 students over the last several years, costing the district nearly $1 million in state funding support.

Meanwhile, other districts in Grant County have been gaining kids — and the state funding that follows them.

According to Oregon Department of Education statistics, Grant School District’s enrollment has dropped every year since 2019-20, when enrollment rose by six students over the previous year to 594.

Following that high-water mark, enrollment started to steadily drop. Grant School District enrollment in 2020-21 fell by more than 50 students in comparison to the previous year, dipping to 543.

The trend continued during the 2021-22 school year with the district’s enrollment falling to 509. In 2022-23, enrollment dipped below 500, with 470 students currently enrolled in Grant School District.

The Prairie City School District, meanwhile, has displayed a completely different trajectory, going from an enrollment of 154 during the 2018-19 school year to 243 for 2022-23, according to ODE statistics.

Monument and Dayville schools have seen increases in enrollment over the past five years as well.

Dayville’s enrollment has risen from the 43 students that were enrolled during the 2018-19 school year to 59 for 2022-23. Similarly, Monument’s enrollment rose from 50 students in 2018-19 to 61 for the 2022-23 school year.

Enrollment numbers only part of the story

While overall school enrollment is part of the issue, it isn’t the entire story. State funding for schools is calculated via average daily membership (known as ADM), or the number of students that attend classes on a daily basis.

A school district’s ADM is made up of two figures.

The first is the ADMr, which represents real average daily membership. The second is ADMw, which is a weighted average daily membership total.

School districts receive extra funding through the ADMw figure when hardships related to a student’s attendance or the nature and difficulty of teaching in certain settings is weighted along with the ADMr figure.

For example, Grant School District’s ADMr in 2022-23 is 455.27. The district receives an extra 18.07 students’ worth of funding to compensate for children in the district who are in poverty and another 86.27 students’ worth of funding for a “small high school” correction.

Taking all of the ADMw adjustments into account gives Grant School District an ADMw of 649.32 for 2022-23. The state uses a similar figure, the extended ADMw to calculate school funding each year.

The extended ADMw takes the current ADMw and compares it to the ADMw for the previous year. If the current year’s ADMw is lower than the previous year’s figure, the state uses the previous year’s figure to build the budget.

Despite Grant School District having an ADMw of 649.32 for the 2022-23 school year, the state used 2021-22’s higher ADMw of 694.04 to build the budget for the 2022-23 school year.

Using this method, it is fairly difficult for a school to see decreases in funding due to enrollment drops unless the drops are steady and span years.

Grant Union School District finds itself in exactly that scenario. Grant School District’s ADMr was at its highest over the past five years during the 2017-18 school year. The ADMr back then was 605.12 while the ADMw was 831.02.

Those figures steadily declined over the years with the 2021-22 ADMr dipping below 500 for the first time at 494.03 while the district’s ADMw dipped below 700 for the first time at 694.04. Grant School District’s extended ADMw for 2021-22 was 734.91.

Estimates for the 2022-23 school year continue the downward trend with the estimated ADMr being 455.27 while the ADMw sits at 649.32. 2022-23’s extended ADMw is projected to be 694.04.

All told, Grant School District has lost close to 150 ADMr students from the 2017-18 school year until today.

Attendance drives state funding

The state school fund grant is ultimately what determines school funding and is determined by complex system that involves adding the general purpose grant with the transportation grant each school receives to get the total formula revenue. The drop in the state school funding grant to Grant School District over the past few years is staggering.

In 2022-23, the general purpose grant was $6,594,824.90 with the transportation grant being $640,000 for a total formula revenue of $7,234,824.90.

A local revenue figure is then subtracted from the total formula revenue figure to get to the state school fund grant figure. Grant School District’s local revenues in 2022-23 were $1,678,638.20 which gives a state school fund grant figure of $5,556,186.70 when subtracted from the total formula revenue figure.

In 2020-21 the state school fund grant figure for Grant School District was at $6,538,956.41 with $9,564 in funding per AWMw student. 2021-22, Grant School District saw a $6,015,744.46 state school fund grant figure with $9,892 per ADMw student. 2022-23’s $5,556,186.70 state grant fund figure is still much lower than previous years despite $10,424 in spending per ADMw student.

All told, the district lost $523,211.95 in state school fund grant monies during the 2021-22 school year in comparison to the 2020-21 year. The district is projected to lose a further $459,557.76 in state school fund monies in the 2022-23 school year.

In total, the district has lost $982,769.71 in state school fund grant money starting with the 2021-22 school year to today. The lost revenue over just the past two years is equivalent to over half of the district’s local revenue for any given year.

Estimates for the 2023-24 school year do see the state school find grant at levels it was at in 2020-21, prior to the start of lost funds. Grant School District is projected to get $6,465,435.85 in state school grant funding for the 2023-24 school year.

Preparation is key

Robert Waltenburg is the superintendent of the Grant County Education Service District. Waltenburg said despite the financial numbers being what they are, district typically stash funds away in preparation for “lean years.” “As districts, we always try to cushion ourselves by maintaining a healthy cash carryover,” he said.

Using that strategy, districts have a choice to tap into the cash carryover funds in order to backfill their budgets or make cuts to services.

Making ends meet without that backstop can be challenging as Grant School District has learned in the past. “For example., John Day School District in the past they’ve closed down schools. They’ve closed Mount Vernon Middle School, they closed Blue Mountain Middle School and those were all directly related to declining student enrollment which resulted in loss of revenue for them,” Waltenburg said.

“Those are the kind of decisions that face school districts when they have a declining enrollment or a declining revenue situation,” he added. Waltenburg added that a healthy cash carryover can help alleviate some of those issues.

Grant School District Superintendent Louis Dix wasn’t in his current post when Grant School District’s enrollment decline started. Still, Dix said the there isn’t a risk of cuts similar to those that had happened in the past.

“Our business manager has said we’re financially sound,” Dix said.

2018-2019:

ADMr=588.70

ADMw=806.24

Extended ADMw=831.02

State School Fund Grant=$5,600,859.41

2019-2020:

ADMr=582.94

ADMw=793.94

Extended ADMw=806.24

State Fund School Grant=$5,762,065.70

2020-21

ADMr=527.45

ADMw=734.91

Extended ADMw=793.75

State School Fund Grant= $6,538,956.41

2021-22

ADMr=494.83

ADMw=694.04

Extended ADMw=734.91

State School Fund Grant= $6,015,744.46

*2022-23:

ADMr=455.27

ADMw=649.32

Extended ADMw=694.04

State School Fund Grant=$5,556,186.70

*2023-24

ADMr=477

ADMw=672.81

Extended ADMw=672.81

State School Fund Grant=$6,465,435.85

* indicates that figures are estimates