The Wenatchee School District is losing but not quite hemorrhaging students.

"We had projected about 220 less students this school year," says Superintendent Kory Kalahar. "We ended up with about 175 less. It's still a big number, but for the most part, we're happy about the fact that we have less students projected to be not in our system than before."

But Kalahar acknowledges that every loss cuts deep from a fiscal standpoint.

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"Our student enrollment is what generates state and federal revenue - the more students we have, the more revenue we get," Kalahar says. "The more students we lose, the less revenue we get and the more adjustments we have to make." What, pray tell, has that meant for the district? Fluctuating demand for staff.

"We've been trying to align our staffing to enrollment. During those pandemic years, we were using the state dollars to add staff, which we did for three or four years. Then the state funding went away and we had a surplus of amazing staff members, but we really had to align our staffing to enrollment numbers." The 2023-24 budget was epically austere, nixing $3.8M in staffing dollars.

COVID-19 and the ensuing upheaval are chiefly to blame for the fall in enrollment, Kalahar says.

"The biggest decline in enrollment was obviously during the pandemic; we lost 380 students who we thought might come back, but for one reason or another did not."

More recently the district has seen larger graduating classes and smaller incoming classes, which Kalahar attributes to plummeting birthrates, a nationwide trend.

According to Kalahar, the complete dearth of affordable housing is another obstacle to enticing young families to the district. Enrollment is further eroded, Kalahar says, by the proliferation by charter and other less traditional schools.

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Gallery Credit: Kyle Matthews

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