By Rich Larson, KYMN News
With birth rates dropping lower and lower, and a national housing shortage reaching more than half a decade long, declining school enrollment is affecting most school districts, including the Northfield School District, around the country. Northfield Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matt Hillmann said recently that the competition for students is stronger in Northfield than in many other districts around the state because of the presence of Prairie Creek and Arcadia Charter Schools and St. Dominic School, along with other excellent school districts in the area.
To better understand what families are looking for from the district when they decide their student should attend school, Northfield has put a survey in place. Hillmann said the district is using emails, direct mailings, phone calls and video calls to hear from a specific group of people about their values for education and their decision making process.
“When we look at who are the folks that we want to learn the most from, we are targeting residents who are choosing another traditional public school district for their child’s education. So it might be a Northfield School District resident who is choosing New Prague or Lakeville.”
To this point, he said, the district has heard from a few of the email recipients, some of whom have given him a very direct answer, which he said he will always appreciate.
The district, he said, is seeking to learn as much as they can about why local families are choosing to send their children to other school districts for one simple reason: re-recruitment. Declining enrollment means less money for Northfield’s public schools. Less money means larger class sizes, higher fees for extracurricular participation, and fewer programming choices. The district would like to at least maintain the things they offer students, and if increases can be made in class choices, or if a family doesn’t have to pay quite as much for their daughter to play basketball, so much the better.
The state’s robust Open Enrollment program puts the competition for students in place, and Hillmann said he favors and supports the program.
“I think it’s great that we have really such a great system of public school choice in Minnesota. Minnesota has been the leader many times in this, whether it will be open enrollment or the charter school movement. And so, I like a little competition, so I don’t mind it at all. And I think we have a great product, a great place for kids to learn, a place where kids feel like they belong.”
Dr. Hillmann indicated that the survey process should wrap up by the end of this month, and they hope to be using the data by the middle of February.
