The district has received questions about reasons for the decline in enrollment and how that decline affects the financial situation of the district. These are extremely complex areas to explore. Over the last four years, in addition to the normal budgeting process, the School Board has heard two presentations a year that address these issues. We want to provide information as clearly as possible here. The complexity makes this a long document.

How much has enrollment decreased?

The chart above shows the enrollment of the district on October 1 of each of the last 22 years. From 2000 until 2018, enrollment was always between 4900 and 5300. Since 2018, we have decreased a total of 619 students, most of those (378) during the COVID pandemic. Our loss from last year to this year is 119 students.

When a student who was enrolled in our district does not show up, we do multiple follow ups by phone, email, and mail to figure out where they are. State law requires us to drop students from our enrollment after 10 days of no attendance. If, despite contact, they do not attend for 10 consecutive days, they are disenrolled with the 10 day drop code entered in our system and in state reports.

There was a suspension of the 10 day drop during the pandemic, for the end of the 2019-2020 school year, and for the 2020-2021 school year. The state told every district in the state NOT to do a 10 day drop, and only disenroll if the parent/guardian withdrew the student. Statewide, this is when we all saw the largest drop in enrollment. After following ODE guidelines and keeping these students enrolled all through the pandemic, when we started school this year, our follow up attempts were not responded to for most of those students. 

In the latest official update from the Oregon Department of Education (ODE), Newberg is by no means the only district with declining enrollment. Statewide, total enrollment in public schools is down approximately 17,300 since school ended last June. Here is what ODE said about that decline: “According to reports from our ESD partners many KG - 8 students are continuing to homeschool with a small number enrolling in virtual charters. We are anticipating the majority of these students will eventually return to the public school setting once families are ready.”

How do you account for the 119 students the district lost?

This year’s kindergarten class was 47 students less than the graduating class of 2021. Between the end of last school year and October 1, 2021, we had 60 students transfer out of the district, and 46 transfer in, for a net loss of 14. 58 students transferred to other online schools, and 56 went to homeschool. Those three numbers add up to 175, which more than accounts for the loss of 119 districtwide (and shows that we did add some students to the district who were not here last year). Our homeschool data comes from Willamette Education Service District (WESD), and does not give any reasons for why homeschool was chosen.

What procedures does the district follow when students leave the district?

There are many procedures that take place at the local school level. If a student has been enrolled, and a parent/guardian follows the proper process, they notify the school, disenroll, and we ask where they are going. Families are not obligated to give any reason.

If a student is moving to homeschool, they are disenrolled with the homeschool code entered in our system and in state reports.

If a student is moving to a private school, they are disenrolled with the private school code entered in our system and in state reports. We tell the parent/guardian to have the private school do a records request, and if we know the name of the school, we contact the school to initiate the official records request process.

If a student is transferring to another public school (whether online or in-person), they must fill out a transfer release form from our district and have that approved. The district they are going to must accept that transfer and return the paperwork to our district. At that time, they are disenrolled with the transfer code entered in our system and in state reports.

What reasons are people giving for leaving the district?

Each school shares a spreadsheet where they enter any reasons given for leaving the district. As stated, families do not have to give a reason and some do not. Between October 1, 2021, and November 24, 2021, four more students transferred out of district (for a total of 64 students since last school year), and four more students transferred to other online schools (for a total of 62 students since last school year). 

Looking at the 64 who have transferred out of district:

• 9 never attended NSD, but are counted because we must process a district release 
• 22 said they transferred out of district for a program in another district.
  • 16 of the 22 went to another online program in Yamhill County 
  • 2 of the 22 said they left because of the mask mandates
• 16 said they transferred out because of family convenience. This is often because a parent/guardian has a job in another town and prefers to have them in school close to their work.
• 13 said they moved and want to continue in the district they previously attended 
• 5 said they wanted a different social-emotional environment/smaller school
• 3 said they had “other” reasons. Two specifically said they were looking for more diversity for their students’ school experience
• 2 said they were unhappy. One gave a specific reason for unhappiness, and stated they were unhappy with Board policies
• 3 did not give an answer

Looking at the 62 who have transferred to other online schools:

The spreadsheet the secretaries keep for these transfers does not have any reasons listed for leaving. 28 of those 62 told us they were never enrolled in Newberg School District. 24 of those 62 left the district since last year. That leaves 10 who were not in the district last year, but we could not determine if they were in the district at an earlier date.

How does the decline in enrollment affect the financial situation of the district?

In the state of Oregon, funding is allocated based on ADMw. That stands for “Average Daily Membership weighted.” The numbers given above are not the weighted numbers. There are many categories that create a “weighted” average membership, because students in certain populations (such as special education, English Learners, poverty, etc.) are given additional funding from the state. 

The numbers given above are used to calculate the ADMr (Average Daily Membership resident). The average of all of our first of the month enrollment reports gives ADMr. Then, there are complicated formulas applied based on our student population (within certain limits established by the state) to develop the ADMw, which is what we are actually funded upon.

The further complication is that funding per ADMw also changes, depending upon enrollment across the state. The state of Oregon updates the district three times a year on our ADMw, as well as giving an estimate of what to expect for funding. The state reconciles those numbers into the following school year, which means that there are sometimes adjustments (positive or negative) to district funding even a full year after the school year is complete. It is a challenging process, and we have been extremely grateful for how the steady leadership of Director of Finance Nikki Fowler has been able, over the last three years, to plan accordingly and adjust based on the fluctuations from the state.

In addition to all this, there is the “Hold Harmless” rule in funding for education in Oregon. This means that the state looks at the ADMw of each district for the current year and the previous year, and funds the district based on whichever year is higher. This means that no matter how much enrollment drops during this current year, we know that we will at least be funded based upon our ADMw from last year. (Your next question is likely, “What is that number?” The ADMw from last year will not be finalized from the state until May of 2022. The current estimate for that number is 5,172.99.)

This means that when we budget for the 2022-23 school year, our “Hold Harmless” amount will drop below the 5,172.99, because it will be based on wherever we end up for this year’s enrollment. If 2022-2023 ends up having a higher enrollment than 2021-22, we will be funded on the higher amount for the 2022-2023 school year.

When we begin the budgeting process for next year, the business office will take the projection for the state for this year’s ADMw, adjust it with internal data, and be able to make an estimate for what our “Hold Harmless” amount will be for the 2022-2023 budget year.

We refer you to all the documents on our website from last year’s budget process, where there is much more detail on all of the complicated aspects of Oregon School Funding: 

https://www.newberg.k12.or.us/district/recent-budget-updates

Bottom line: 

Our current budget was created expecting 4,564 students. That is ADMr. We set that number by taking our projection for this year, and conservatively adding 150 students, as ODE’s guidance believed districts would recover some of the student loss from distance learning (which for our district was a loss of 378 students). As we have seen, that return of students did not occur. The budgeted ADMw was 5,310. The lowest funding we will receive this year due to hold harmless is based on an ADMw of 5,172.99 (that number itself is an estimate, and will change until May of 2022 because of how the State does accounting.) 

When we created this year’s budget, the per student amount for ADMw was estimated to be $8,737. As of November 1, 2021, the estimate per student has gone up to $9,026. This is because the same amount of dollars are available to K-12 students throughout the state; however, as stated earlier, enrollment has dropped across the state, meaning more money is available per student. Again, that number will change until May of 2022, because of how the state does accounting. 

So one way to look at it is this: we could project a shortfall of $1,236,652.26. (budgeted ADMw of 5,310 - hold harmless ADMw of 5,172.99 = 137.01, multiplied by $9,026 = $1,236,652.26). 

However, another way to look at it is that we budgeted for 5,310 ADMw, multiplied by the estimate at the time of $8,737 per student, for a total of $46,393,470. With our hold harmless number of 5,172.99 ADMw, multiplied by the new estimate of $9,026 per student, the total is $46,691,407.70. Looking at it this way, we actually may receive $297,937.70 MORE than we budgeted. But again, those numbers will change as the state brings out new estimates.

We will obviously have variances to the budget due to staffing and other financial obligations the district has recently incurred. Nikki Fowler’s financial reports each month to the School Board take all of this into account to project where we are. 

We hope this information about all the complexity of Oregon School funding will answer some of your questions.