CHIPPEWA FALLS — Enrollment in the Chippewa Falls School District has been declining in recent years, and a new UW-Madison study shows that trend is likely to continue.
David Egan-Robertson from UW-Madison recently presented his 63-page report to the school board, with his projections showing the school district will continue to see a steady enrollment decline. Egan-Robertson works in the University’s Applied Population Laboratory, and all models he ran showed a steady enrollment decline through 2034-35.
“A big part of the story is just smaller families and fewer children,” he told the board at their December meeting. “We do have to make some assumptions about births.”
The pre-K enrollment in 2015-16 was 367; this year that pre-k enrollment was 303. A projection Egan-Robertson ran indicated that number would decline to 271 by 2029-2030 and down to 234 by 2034-35.
The enrollment declines have been low, but are adding up. In 2015-16, enrollment district-wide was 5,102. This year, enrollment was 4,535, or 577 fewer students.
“The enrollment this fall was 11% lower than 2016 — you’ve been losing about 1% a year over the past decade,” Egan-Robertson said.
Even more concerning, the elementary school enrollment is down 16% since 2015-16, he wrote.
Some suburban districts in Madison are seeing student growth, but rural areas in Wisconsin are generally declining, he said.
Also, the number of new students entering kindergarten and first grade are not matching the number of kids who are juniors and seniors.
“You’ve got smaller cohorts entering the system, and larger cohorts graduating and moving on,” he said. “It’s showing up in virtually all districts around the state.”
Egan-Robertson estimated the high school enrollment will decline from about 1,440 students across grades 9-12 to 1,350.
In the elementary schools, the enrollment declines range from -3% to -12%, he added.
Births in the district are declining by six to eight children a year, leading to a 15% decline in children ranging from newborns to age 4 in 2020, compared to 2010, he said.
Another problem is the gap between students enrolling into the district and the students opting to enroll elsewhere is widening. This year, 205 students open-enrolled in, but 429 enrolled elsewhere, he said.
“Private school attendance has increased rapidly since 2019-20,” Egan-Robertson wrote. “While it cannot be said with certainty that every privately enrolled student is a resident of the district, private schools within the district’s borders saw their enrollments rise from 575 in 2019-20 to 876 in 2023-24.”
There are several new private schools in the district’s boundaries in recent years, and Veritas Academy is planning to open its charter school on the East Hill in the fall, not far from Parkview Elementary.
While new births are down, more people are now living in the boundaries of the school district, he added. In 2010, about 33,046 people lived in the school district’s borders, but that population had grown to 35,834 by 2020.
“The population grew at a healthy rate, at about eight percent,” he said.
The school board just started working on a study to possibly revise the borders for the six elementary schools. The goal is to have that study completed by spring, with any changes to the borders implemented for the fall.
“It’s very timely with the work our boundary committee is doing,” Business Manager Chad Trowbridge said of the population study.