The Paton-Churdan School District sees an overall decrease in its certified enrollment, but this is also a positive aspect as well.

Superintendent Brian Johnson says while the certified enrollment for the 2025-26 school year is down seven students from the previous year to 181, open enrollment into the P-C District is up six students to 48. He shares his thoughts about having six additional students who live in another school district that are coming to their district.

“Anytime you can get a positive open enrollment in, I think that says great things about your school district and I think just the staff at Paton-Churdan, just the way they care and how they get to know you as a person is very appealing to parents these days.”  

As for the overall certified enrollment seeing a decline, Johnson believes that is a growing trend in a majority of the public school districts across the state, but they haven’t figured out what the exact reasons are for the loss of students.

“That’ll be interesting to see what we find out about that. A lot more choices now for people to educate, to make it work for their lives. So, the old paradigm of public education that we’re all used to that I went to school with is not the only option anymore.”  

Certified enrollment is calculated every school year on October 1st and those figures determine the funding from the state for the next school year budget in the general fund.