STUDENTS AT KINGSFORD High School gather around to view an experiment in the Advanced Placement Chemistry class at Kingsford High School. The class is very popular with students at KHS and is taught by Joe Kriegl. The school offers five other AP classes.

KINGSFORD — The area’s largest district got bigger, but most Dickinson and Iron county public schools either held steady or showed slight enrollment declines in their fall 2017 student head counts.

Breitung Township Schools, which includes Kingsford High School, tallied 1,850 students in October, up 49 pupils from the February count of 1,801. The state requires such head counts every October and February.

A total of 492 students attend BTS from other area schools, which could bring in $3,754,452 in revenue this year.

Breitung Township Schools District Superintendent Craig Allen said the Oct. 4 count showed 856 students in early kindergarten through fifth grade, compared with 854 in the February count; 431 students in sixth through eighth grades, compared with 404 the previous year; and 563 students in ninth through 12th grades at Kingsford High School, compared with 543 a year ago.

That total Breitung count differs from the full-time equivalent, or FTE, students a district will be able to use for state aid. Breitung Township Schools last year claimed 1,791 FTEs and this year estimated it will have 1,839, up by 48 students.

The head count is not the same count that will be used for state aid, school officials explained.

Even if a student only attends school for an hour each day, they are included during the count day but can only be considered as .16 FTE, Dickinson-Iron Intermediate School District Superintendent Wendy Warmuth explained.

Districts won’t know their full-time equivalent counts until they have been audited, Allen said. He added that if he had to estimate, the district would have 1,838 to 1,840 FTE students.

Iron Mountain Schools in October recorded an estimated 801 FTEs for all grades, compared with 790 last year, for an increase of 11 full-time students.

Iron Mountain on Oct. 4 had a student head count of 842. The district had 316 students in early kindergarten through the sixth grade, 116 in grades 7 through 8 and 295 at Iron Mountain High School. Another 74 full-time equivalents were counted from the virtual core and elective students.

The numbers turned out to be 11 students more than the 790 Iron Mountain officials estimated in August, officials said.

The DIISD covers six local school districts — Breitung Township, Forest Park, Iron Mountain, North Dickinson, Norway-Vulcan, and West Iron County. Districts have until Nov. 8 to certify their October head count results with the state, Warmuth said.

More important than how the counts stack against the previous school year is how the enrollment number compares with what the district estimated when setting its budget July 1. The closer that figure comes to reality will determine if the budget stays balanced or drifts into deficit spending.

Michigan in fiscal year 2017 provided $7,511 per full-time student. That number rose by $120 a student for the current year, to $7,631.

Norway-Vulcan Area Schools estimated its FTEs this year at 707.14, down 5.86 from 713 the previous year, Superintendent Lou Steigerwald said.

The district budgeted for 710 students this year, which was close to the actual October head count of 712, Steigerwald said.

NVAS had counted 277 students in the elementary school this year, 211 in the middle school and 244 in the high school.

North Dickinson County School District had an Oct. 4 count of 254: 107 in grades kindergarten through fifth grades, 60 in sixth to eighth grades, and 87 in high school grades ninth through 12.

That was down 25 students from the 2016-17 school year, a drop Superintendent/Principal Angel Inglese attributed to a larger graduating class last spring and fewer incoming students.

She and other districts estimate pupil numbers will level off after this year, Inglese said.

West Iron County Schools’ fall count showed 843 students, down six FTEs from 849 in the previous school year, Superintendent Chris Thomson said. That includes 393 students at Stambaugh Elementary School, 188 at West Iron Middle School and 262 at West Iron County High School.

Forest Park School District this year had 426 students, 11 fewer than 417 a year ago.

Superintendent Becky Waters said that head count Oct. 4 was 417, which was broken down to 195 students in elementary and 222 in middle/high school.

Some of the declines in enrollment can be traced to a lower birth rate, people moving out of an area for jobs, students going to a different district through the school choice program, and generally smaller class sizes from previous years.