School enrollment sees small decline

Mark Mahoney Wausa Gazette WAUSA — Wausa Public Schools has seen a small decline in the overall number of students from 2021-22 to 2022-23.

The school district's total student enrollment for the 2022-23 academic year was 218 for prekindergarten-12th grade, as of Aug. 26.

Brad Hoesing, who is in his 16th year as Wausa's superintendent, noted the school district's overall number of students was down by five from the previous academic year.

'We are seeing a little bit of lower numbers in our elementary,' he said.

'I don't think we're unique,' he said.

'You're seeing a lot of that in rural Nebraska.'

Hoesing mentioned Wausa school board members are aware of the elementary numbers.

'It's just something that we have to watch,' he said. 'Not drastic – we're defi nitely not looking at closing or anything like that.

'Whenever you have some smaller class numbers in certain areas, it's something to watch for,' he said.

Hoesing noted Wausa High School likely has the most students it has had since he started working for the school district.

'It kind of ebbs and flows,' he said. 'When I first came here, we didn't have classes of 20s, so now we've got that in the high school, which is great.

'But then we get into our lower elemen- tary – the numbers kind of drop o a little bit,' he said. 'When I say that, three or four families moving in makes a big dierence there.'

Hoesing mentioned the school district is not in any sort of panic mode based on its current student enrollment.

'If you're doing a good job in planning and developing, that's something you watch,' he said. 'We're obviously not in any danger of closing or something drastic like that.' Hoesing noted small rural school districts such as Wausa have to work with local organizations in the community to make sure there is housing available for young families who want to move to the area.

'That's all part of our strategic plan, too – making sure that we work with our local entities, whether it's our economic development or our village board,' he said.

'One thing in our plan that we're trying to do more is do more reach-out to those entities because we haven't done much of that in the past,' he said.

Hoesing mentioned the school district must work together with local organizations to make sure itself and the community it serves not only survive, but thrive.

'We have to make sure that we keep things going,' he said.

Hoesing noted declining student enrollment could obviously become a concern, especially if a school district does not plan well for the future.

'We have to make sure that we provide kids with opportunities no matter what their enrollment numbers are,' he said.

Hoesing mentioned the number of students per grade active in extracurricular activities in high school makes a difference.

'You could have classes of 20 and have very few kids active,' he said. 'You could have classes of 13 to 14 and they're all out.

'That also is something that we need to talk about a little bit on our board,' he said. 'They're aware of it.'

Hoesing noted the school district needs to continue providing academic and athletic opportunities for its students however it can. One way school districts can do that – especially small rural ones – is through cooperative agreements with other area school districts.

Hoesing mentioned parents not only want their children to have the same opportunities they did, they want their kids to have more options.

'When you co-op with another school, the point is that both parties mutually benefit from that co-op,' he said.

Hoesing noted the Bloomfield- Wausa cross country team as an example of a cooperative agreement that has been 'wonderful' for Wausa.

'There are some years where Wausa has more kids out than Bloomfield, and then there are some years where Bloomfield has more kids out than Wausa,' he said.

'It's been mutually beneficial,' he said. 'Both schools have benefited greatly from that cooperative agreement.'

Hoesing believed more cooperative agreements will happen between small rural school districts in the future.

'You're going to start seeing that just because these little towns are going to need to work together to offer those opportunities for kids,' he said. Hoesing noted the difficulty of planning for Wausa's future based on the school district's current student enrollment. 'We need to make sure that we monitor it,' he said. 'We need to make sure that we have opportunities for our kids and we continue to grow not just our school, but our community because we have an obligation to our community to grow them as well.'