School district sees flat October count; more cash per student

CBCS boosts enrollment by 39

The Gunnison Watershed School District is growing in places, and it’s not just the buildings getting bigger. The official count in October tallied 1,864 students in the district, which is about the same number of students as last year, but sizeable gains were seen in Crested Butte and Marble.

Crested Butte Community School has its highest enrollment since opening in 1998, counting 553 students despite a lagging economy that made school administrators wonder if district enrollment would suffer. Last year the school counted 514 students in October.
Marble Charter School counted 40 students this fall, which is more than that school has ever had.
Enrollment is just about flat across the district, according to Superintendent Jon Nelson, with student enrollment down in the district’s other schools.
Enrollment at Gunnison Elementary and Lake Elementary are 482 and 183 respectively, while Gunnison Valley School stayed at a capped enrollment of 26. Gunnison High School shrunk to 332 and Gunnison Middle School followed suit to put them at 248 students.
To keep the formulas straight, the state translates that number into a total of 1718.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) students, since kindergarten students and some others are not considered full-time. So, the district is claiming 23 FTE more than last year, which is helping to bring up the district’s revenues.
Nelson attributed the district’s growth this year to a large kindergarten class that moved into first grade, and a small graduating class. The Colorado Department of Education’s contribution, which itself is comprised of local property taxes, reflects that.
The amount the district gets for each FTE has gone down significantly over the past year, from more than $7,000 to $6,795 per student. That reduced the district’s funding from $11,915,064 to $11,553,425.
“[The reduction in funding] is obviously less than we were expecting,” Nelson said. Despite such deep cuts, the district will be better off financially with a higher head count than expected.
“There had been grave concerns that [enrollment] would be dropping considerably and I’m happy that we’re staying flat, more or less,” school board president Anne Hausler said at a board meeting on Monday, November 8. “The rescissions are going to be neutralized a little bit, not to say that they’re not serious. But the district’s overall funding level should be no less than what was budgeted.”
The board voted unanimously to accept the October count and submit those numbers to the state for reimbursement.