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Ely school enrollment is nearly identical to where it was a year ago.
Overall, in grades K-12, the district has 525 students enrolled as of Monday.
That’s nearly on par with the total reported this time a year ago, when there were 530 students enrolled.
The total is also up slightly, by four students, from the 521 reported at the end of the 2023-24 school year.
That’s one bright spot from an enrollment report that included the lowest September total on record in district history.
The district has more students enrolled than it did for much of the 2021-22 school year, when totals hovered around 500 students during the midst of a controversial mask mandate, and the decline this fall included one silver lining: an incoming kindergarten class of 37 students That’s 18 more than were enrolled in kindergarten last September, although that group has shrunk further for the start of the 2024-25 school year, as Ely now reports 17 students enrolled in first grade.
The graduation of a 33-member senior class, meanwhile, was more than offset by the 37 students entering kindergarten this month.
School officials keep a watchful eye on enrollment numbers, which are tied to state per pupil funding and the district’s financial health.
The numbers can be in flux, particularly early in a school year, and district enrollment totals in 2023-24 fluctuated from 530 at the start of the school year to 521 by the time it ended.
Enrollment in Ely has fallen precipitously through the decades, falling nearly in half from 921 in the fall of 1995 to 538 in 2009.
From 2010-17, student population slowly rebounded, climbing to 596 at the start of the 2017-18 school year.
A slight dip followed and the start of the Covid-19 pandemic ushered in further drops, to 531 at the start of the 2021-22 school year to as little as 504 the next month.
The district has since recovered from those dips, even with the small kindergarten group last year.
That figure was an anomaly as school officials said last fall that they expected the kindergarten group this year to be larger.
Overall, the district currently has 20 fewer students enrolled than it did this time two years ago, but only six less than the 531 reported in the fall of 2021.
School board members generally review enrollment numbers at the start of the school year, and superintendent and K-12 principal Anne Oelke provided the latest count during the monthly meeting.
The current totals show 332 students enrolled in the Memorial (Grades 6-12) Building and another 193 in the Washington (K-5).
Only four of the 13 grade levels have at least 45 students, the same as last year but down from five in 2022 and down from seven three years ago.
Ely’s largest classes are the 62-member eighth grade and the 53-member seventh grade.
The first-grade, by contrast, is the smallest with 17 students enrolled and only one elementary class - fourth grade (40) - has at least 40 students.
With enrollment ranging in the 500s for a least 18 years, it’s an era of relative stability in enrollment after massive losses from the mid-1990s through 2009.
Those declines triggered financial woes, a reduction in staff and raised threats of statutory operating debt designation, which occurs when reserves fall into negative balance.
Since then, the district has rebuilt its reserves.
While enrollment has largely stabilized, totals are a far cry from enrollments of 1,500 or more recorded during peak periods of the 1960s and 1970s.
Peak K-12 enrollment in Ely was in 1967, when the district reported enrollment of 1,775.
Enrollment last exceeded 1,500 in 1977 (1,502) and last topped 1,000 in 1985 (1,019).
The last year with 750 or more students was 2001 (758).
