Enrollment declines slightly for district

WAUPACA – Wisconsin is continuing to see a decline in enrollment in public school districts across the state, with school budgets tightening and student support needs remaining high.

According to a March 2026 Wisconsin Public Radio report, over 90% of counties saw a decline in district enrollments, which added up to a decline in just over 14,000 students.

Waupaca is one of the 68 counties that saw a decline in student enrollments, with future projections going in the same direction.

Student enrollment for a district is counted twice a year—the third Friday in September and the second Friday in January.

These numbers assist the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) in a variety of ways, most notably in determining state-aid allocations.

The DPI uses this membership data to calculate the exact amount of per pupil funding a district is eligible for, using a three-year rolling average for public schools to absorb sudden fluctuations.

Mark Flatten, Waupaca district administrator, said the decline in student enrollments can be attributed to a multitude of things, like people having fewer children and alternate opportunities in education that may not have existed in the past. 

Austin Moore, the district finance director, said the full-time equivalency or FTE is down about 30 students in the school district.

Moore pointed out that 68 out of 72 counties have had declining enrollment, with two districts increasing by around five students and Dane County increasing by 200 students.

Moore said the drop of 30 students did not come from one class, but is instead spread out throughout the district, which means costs do not go down due to the decrease.

“I think about my household, and when my daughter moved out of my household, my heat bill didn’t go down because she wasn’t there,” Moore said. “All those expenses stayed the same even though there were less people living there.”

To combat these rising trends the Waupaca school district is working with neighboring school districts to create a collaborative environment to continue to ensure student success across the county.

“If we don’t collaboratively come together we are going to have fewer and fewer options as time goes on,” Flatten said at an Oct. 13 school board meeting.

Flatten said that is working with eleven neighboring districts to coordinate 2027-2028 calendars and bell schedules so students can use Zoom to take classes, or travel between districts.

This is a means to be able to continue offering expanded access to technical college programs and more course options for students, Flatten said.

This will allow schools to have more options for students while funding continues to tighten.

School funding is continuing to be trickier waters to navigate for Wisconsin school districts as districts continue to head to referendum.

Last spring, Wisconsin voters in 72 school districts saw a referendum on their ballot, 62 of which were operational, including Waupaca, which passed, and Iola, which did not.

According to reporting from the Wisconsin State Journal, an additional 78 districts will be on the ballot this fall for both operational and capital referendums, asking for a total of $1.6 billion from taxpayers in their respective districts.