The Gladbrook-Reinbeck School Board held the first of two informational meetings Tuesday night at the G-R Middle School to inform the public on enrollment trends, the state funding shortfall, actions to increase spending authority and actions to reduce expenses. The second meeting was held Thursday night in the auditorium at the G-R High School. Supt. Tim Kuehl said the nation, state and district are facing challenging economic times.

The district heard earlier this year the state has cut 1.5% from the budget for school districts, meaning G-R will receive $48,458 less than what was budgeted.. The district has been receiving 87.5% of the cost per pupil in state aid money, which this year amounted to $2,983,526. Because of declining enrollment, the district receives less each year.

The district is down 30 students this year. The district is looking at creating a grade alike configuration. The board has looked at keeping K-1 at each elementary and grades 2-3-4 would be at one site or K-2 at each elementary and grades 3-4 at one site. Currently at the Gladbrook campus there is one section for grades 3 and 4 and the Reinbeck campus has 2 sections in grade 3 and 1 section for grade 4.

The pros for having students in one building would be to increase the collaboration between teachers, reduces duplication of materials and services, and allows reduction of two full-time teachers. Transportation of Gladbrook students to Reinbeck could be done on one bus, requiring no additional drivers. It would require one more bus to be on a shuttle route every day.

Because there were several early retirements this year, the board isn’t planning on laying off any full time teachers at the elementary.

Current enrollment at the high school is 258 students, compared to 180 students in middle school. In grades K-4 there are 186 students. These numbers show a declining enrollment over the next several years. Both districts are looking at ways to get and keep more day care and preschool students in the district. Reinbeck already has plans to start construction of a day care and Gladbrook is in the initial planning stage. Both campuses offer before and after school programs. The district has offered money for construction of the building only and this money comes from local option sales tax. Money in the general fund is used for teacher salaries and cannot be used for infrastructure.

Kuehl said by having a day care facility and better preschool options, the district is hoping to see an increase in enrollment numbers because families would keep their children in the district and it may entice families to move to either Gladbrook or Reinbeck.

This year the district is losing 57 students to open enrollment, with the highest numbers going to Hudson and GMG.

The board will be making a decision on the grade alike configuration either at the February or March meetings.