It’s official: Enrollment up in New Hampton

For the layperson, if you will, it’s one of the mysteries of school finance: How can administrators not know their exact enrollment on any given day of school? Isn’t it just a matter of counting?
Ah, if it was only that easy, right Jay Jurrens?
“I wish it was, but the way the state figures enrollment — a .2 here, a .2 there, some districts counting the same student twice,” the New Hampton superintendent said, “it’s honestly not as easy to count as just going around each school at a certain time and counting.”
So New Hampton’s top school administrator was ecstatic this last week when the district certified its Oct. 1 enrollment at 929, an increase of 14 students, or 1.5 percent, from Oct. 1, 2019.
“I’m always hesitant to say where I think we’re at right after Oct. 1,” he said, “mostly because I’ve seen numbers change relatively dramatically from what you think you had on Oct. 1 and what you get to certify you had.”
— For more on this story, see the Oct. 20 Tribune