NCOE Schools are showing their lowest enrollment through sixth day in a generation, a trend many school districts in the region are experiencing. Students at NCOE schools are also among the safest according to law enforcement.
Sixth day enrollment figures for NCOE schools for this year put the district down 44 students from 2024 and off more than 200 since the turn of the century. There are 579 students enrolled with 371 youngsters Kindergarten through 5th, 130 junior high students, and 188 at the high school. Unit 3’s enrollment has seen four drops of at least 40 students over the last 25 years including a 57 student drop from 2022 to 2023, and two sequential drops of 44 and 41 in 2009 to 2010 and then 2010 to 2011. The district also has 23 students enrolled in Pre-K which are not represented in official enrollment data.
Even with fewer numbers, the school board has made safety and security a priority and recent renovations have been met with high marks according to Superintendent Matt Vollman. School officials recently met with law enforcement to go over school security.
State Police asked a lot of good questions. They’re in a lot of buildings. To quote [Sergeant] Adam Zimmerman, he said ‘no doubt, I’m in a lot of schools and you guys are the tip of the spear when it comes to school security’.
Vollman discussed recent upgrades including doors and the new home ec room saying he anticipated holding an open house during the Dairy Days breakfast on Saturday, September 27th.
The school board also approved the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget after a public hearing prior to the regular meeting. No member of the public was in attendance for either the public hearing, nor the regular meeting. Funding continues to be of concern. Vollman says he’s starting to hear about cuts and that Unit 3 was notified of a drop from Tier 1 to Tier 2 status.
Our evidence based funding, I’ll start with that. That’s kind of our bread and butter you might say that comes from the state. We have moved from Tier 1 status…that’s the most underfunded schools…to Tier 2. And you can go all the way up to Tier 3. As I understand it, Chicago public got bumped down from Tier 2 to Tier 1 which in turn bumped a lot of schools out of Tier 1 status because they take up 40% of the new money. So it bumped us over to Tier 2. I don’t know all the schools; I know Carmi got bumped down to Tier 1 for the same reason.
Board President Matt McArthy says he believes Hardin and Pope County kept their Tier 2 status, but most other schools also dropped status. So what does that mean dollars and sense?
Just to kind of give you an idea from 2024 to 2025 with the EBF (Evidence Based Funding) being Tier 1 status, last year we saw an increase in EBF of $121,670. This year, we’re only getting $39,000 new dollars over last year.
And what does that all mean? Potentially a tough pill to swallow.
They’re saying you need to come up with a plan for more local resources because we’re starting to see our EBF being cut. You guys know as well as I do, you look at our property taxes right now, it’s crazy. Us and Carmi both have one of the lowest tax rates anywhere around, I preach that. Carmi’s was 3.02%; ours was 3.06%. You go to most other school districts and find it 3.54% and above. People are complaining about property taxes and it’s because the assessed value keeps increasing. That’s why you saw this year on your property taxes where the rate went down but people were paying more because that property tax value, the EAV keeps climbing. We’re already low and if we have to rely upon local sources more…I mean people are already crying and I get it. I hope we can keep it low and still maintain.
The School Board recessed into closed session just before 7:30pm.