8,147 students were enrolled in Decatur Public Schools for 2021-2022, according to the Illinois Report Card. This number has declined each school year since at least 2017-2018, when enrollment was 8,923 students.
The largest decline has been among White students, going from 3,340 in 2018 to 2,535 in 2022. Hispanic, Asian, American Indian, and Pacific Islander enrollment has increased very slightly, and Black enrollment has decreased by less than 100 since 2018. Low Income enrollment has increased by just 67 students.
There is some discrepancy among the numbers.
The District's Data Warehouse says there were just 7,468 enrolled on December 19, 2022, for the 2022-2023 School year. The Illinois Report Card won't have 2022-2023 numbers until this fall. And Superintendent Dr. Rochelle Clark said on Tuesday there were about 7,400 students.
I reached out to Communications Officer Denise Swarthout to ask about the discrepancies.
I asked:
The Illinois Report Card shows student enrollment at 8,147 for 2022. The District's Data Warehouse shows 7,468 for 12/19/2022. Dr. Clark recently said the District had about 7,400 students. The Data Warehouse says 7,626 as of May 30, 2023. Eldon Conn said student enrollment was at 80% as of last Friday.
Can you help me understand the discrepancies, especially between the 8,147 IL Report card and the 7,468 Data Warehouse for 2022?
When Dr. Clark said about 7,400 was that regarding the 80% who had registered, or the expectation if 100% registered?
She responded:
The Illinois Report Card is released in October of each year for the previous school year, so the current report card that is posted on ISBE’s sites was released in October 2022 for the 2021-22 school year. Therefore, that data is nearly two years old at this point. A new report card will be released this Fall, for last school year – the enrollment data will likely not match our current live enrollment counts. If you look at all of the dates in our Data Warehouse, you will see a fluctuation in enrollment numbers throughout the 2022-23 school year.
We anticipate enrollment at around 7,400, as that aligns with demographic statistics for the Decatur area. The 80% that Mr. Conn mentioned is the percentage of anticipated students who had registered for the 2023-24 school year as of Monday.
Data Warehouse for December 2022
See for yourself at DPS61 Data Warehouse. There will be a link to view the interactive dashboard.
Illinois Report Card for 2018-2022
For 2022, that means 2021-2022. 2018 means 2017-2018 school year. Etc.
See for yourself at Illinois Report Card. You can click 'Trends', then 'Demographics' and enable 'Low Income'.
