School details finances and more in public forum

In an attempt to clear up misunderstandings on how a school district uses its funds, Creston Community Schools hosted a school finance forum, inviting community members to discuss the intricacies of how a public school district functions.

Facilitating last week’s forum were Superintendent Deron Stender, Board President Don Gee and board member Kathy Thorne Ralston to answer any questions visitors had. Stender led the majority of the meeting, presenting information on district attendance and trends in the past few years.

Stender said district funding relies heavily on the per-pupil State Supplemental Aid rate, or how much money a school district will receive for their general fund per student. Next year, following the approved 2% increase from Iowa legislature, that number will be $8,148 per student.

For the 2025-26 school year, the district had a reported enrollment count of 1,286 students (based on the enrollment count on Oct. 1, 2024). Combined with the $7,988 SSA, the district received about $10.27 million for that year.

As has been the trend, student enrollment in Creston has continued to drop. The enrollment count in previous years were 1,331 in 2023, 1,369 in 2022, 1,397 in 2021, 1,402 in 2020 and 1,462 in 2019. This data shows the district’s enrollment declining at 3.9% per year (about 44 students). The district expects this trend to continue every year into 2030.

The annual increase to SSA hasn’t offset the district’s downward trend of enrollment, and with a district-estimated increase of 3% every year in operating costs, Stender said something needs to change.

“If our operations goes up 3%, we’re behind schedule,” Stender said. “If our labor costs go up more than, let’s say an average 3%, we can easily negotiate or spend this and this, like that.” He snapped his fingers.

The general fund is the only way a school district can pay their employees. When a district makes changes to the budget, it’s mostly focused on how best to use what’s in the general fund.

"The general fund is the only money that we can use to pay teachers’ salaries and benefits," Ralston said. “There are other funds where we have other money, but the SSA is directly tied to how we can compensate our valuable staff.”

Part of declining enrollment, according to the district, are private schools in the area. Both Mayflower Heritage School and St. Malachy Catholic School accept elementary students.

Iowa legislature has encouraged private school participation through the Students First Act, which provides an Education Savings Account to students who attend accredited private schools. In 2025-26, this voucher program paid $7,988 per pupil.

The resident public school district, in compensation, received $1,660 in ESA funds through state aid for each resident student who doesn’t attend the public school, but there’s a catch.

“None of it goes into the general fund,” Stender said. “It goes into categorical funds, which are inside of probably the general fund, but they’re categoricals, meaning we have to get approval from the state or by the school board to take any money out of it. Some of those funds we can’t touch.”

“ESAs are here and we are in a unique position because we have a really small rural community with two private schools in town,” Ralston said. “That’s very unique, right? So we’re probably the prime — we should be having a documentary made about us or something, how we’re evolving — but that’s our reality. So we’ve lost a lot of students to the private schools that are taking the funds with them.”

These categorical funds prevent the district from using funds in more beneficial ways from ESAs. While legislation has been introduced in Iowa to change ESA funds to be moved with less restrictions into the general fund, this hasn’t been passed, and it’s unlikely to pass within the current session.

“This could make a significant difference just next year for our school,” Ralston said. “Think of all the schools in Iowa that this specific thing would make a huge difference in the general fund spending. We could save a teacher salary or two by having that money.”

Stender estimated ESAs provide the district with about $180,000 in additional funding. Still, in those categorical funds, there isn’t a way to use them for anything the district considers more important.

The difficult subject of what to cut has lead to less-than-ideal decisions for Creston. The declining enrollment rate of about 44 students might sound like losing two classrooms, but the district explained it’s more complicated then that.

“If it was one classroom, it’d make it a lot easier because you know that’s specifically where you can target it,” Stender said. “But when you’ve got to stretch it out — think about this.

“If Diagonal lost this many kids, they wouldn’t have a school. Orient-Macksburg — when they were in operation — if they lost that in two years, they wouldn’t have a school. And there’s about 12% of districts out there in the state of Iowa that if they lost 44 students in a year, the next year they’re probably going to — within two years — they’re not going to be operating."

Having foresight, Stender said the district’s tried to make decisions with the expectation of the decreasing enrollment to continue, along with the expectation SSA won’t increase more than 2%.

“What we’ve tried to do is be visionary and planning,” Stender said. “We’re not just planning this year’s budget with what we know, we’re planning each year’s budget with the decline in enrollment that we’re anticipating. With SSA, we plugged in our model at 2%, and then if we get less than 2%, we’re in trouble, I mean, right? We just know that the following year after that, we have to make greater reductions or adjustments in the budget.”

The biggest trouble for next year comes from the younger grades. With less kids entering the district in kindergarten than there are exiting with graduation, Creston has noticed a trend. Compared to the usual 80 students who enter kindergarten, the enrollment numbers had 60 students.

Stender defended the district, saying there wasn’t one specific reason why the numbers suddenly dropped. With exit surveys to parents, Stender said the data doesn’t show any dissatisfaction with the district.

“That’s where I get anxiety is people say, ‘Well, what happened?’” Stender said. “We’ve been talking about this since back [then]. ... And it’s not that nobody in the district has done anything wrong. It’s just fewer children in our resident school district. Okay? Let’s talk about open enrollment. We don’t have an open enrollment problem either.”

When making cuts to programs, Stender said it’s entirely based on the numbers.

“It’s numbers driven,” Stender said. “In our district, we have to go to a model where our decisions that the board makes, it stinks, but it’s budget. It’s numbers driven. Do we have enough kids to have a freshman girls basketball coach? If we don’t, then we can’t sustain it.”

Stender gave an explanation for why the district cut the bowling team. When active, the bowling team would be transported to Osceola in order to practice at a local bowling alley. After the alley had burned down, the students were being transported to Stuart.

Stender said the program was the only one where practices require the team to transport out of the district, and the district can’t support it.

“Everything increases when we’re leaving the school district to provide a program,” Stender said. “And that’s the only program that we leave the school district to both providing support. I’m not saying it’s not a good program. That’s not it at all. It just comes down to the numbers have to justify the cost.”

Cuts won’t just come to programs; staff positions at every level of the district are being looked at.

“Nobody’s job is safe from the district,” Stender said. “Not that we’re out to get anybody’s job ... whatever your title is, is there’s no sacred cow.”

One way to save costs that Stender has tried to find is to have the superintendent position be filled through operation sharing. Unfortunately, talks with other districts weren’t fruitful, with Stender owing to the size of Creston as the reason why.

“For a variety of reasons, a lot of what I get is, ‘[Creston’s] too big.’” Stender said.

Despite continued reductions to the district’s budget ($665,831 in 2025-26, $638,842 in 2026-27), Stender praised the quality staff of the district and said the school sees continued strong academic performance. For good performances in activities, Stender singled out the performing arts.

“Our original purpose here is, yeah, we got these budget things, but what I’m extremely proud of is our strong academic performance,” Stender said. “Our kids do well. And I could probably put how they do well in our activities. Marching band. And I think about some of these things. Find me a district that’s got a better marching band in this region consistently year after year after year after year in some of our programs and fine arts, our speeches, our dramas.”

Off the table for the district is increasing the property tax levy. At $11.77 per $1,000 in assessed value, the rate is the lowest in the area. In 2024, the rate was $16.60.

Stender said he expects the district to open a voter-approved bond in 2029 to help pay for facility maintenance, citing Academic Avenue as a target.

The district will hold a second forum at noon Tuesday, April 14, at the Green Hills AEA boardroom, where Creston holds their school board meetings.