REGIONAL- With the school year now underway, it has become clearer that enrollment numbers aren’t going to be the fix for significant budget shortfalls faced by many area school districts, including the Ely and St. Louis County Schools.
St. Louis County, which is in statutory operating debt as budget reserves have fallen and expenses have climbed higher than income, saw a slight enrollment bump, but not enough to meaningfully change the budget outlook.
Ely Schools, which have been working to close a $400,000 budget gap, saw a loss of about three percent of their student population, but the drop had been expected as they graduated a much larger senior class last year than their incoming kindergarten cohort.
By contrast, the Vermilion Country School, a charter school based in Tower, saw a sizable increase in enrollment, including 20 additional students at the Tower campus, as well as better than projected enrollments at their new Mt. Iron campus location. The charter school in Tower had reached its enrollment limit last year, but due to the opening of the second campus, was able to increase its enrollment at the Tower campus. VCS had ended the last school year with about 75 students, but the school has graduated 14 seniors, a large number for the small school, so had expected a slight dip in enrollment, rather than the growth it has actually experienced.
Ely Schools
The dip in student numbers in Ely appears to be purely demographic, rather than a result of the district’s shift to a four-day week.
The district ended last school year in June with 482 students K-12, while 466 have enrolled through the second week of the new school year. That dip almost perfectly matches the gap between the 37 seniors the district graduated last year and the 23 kindergarten students who showed up this fall.
Ely Schools are attracting a lot of open enrollment students. In the elementary, there are 24 students opening enrolling, all but three of which are coming from the St. Louis County Schools. In the high school, 60 students have open enrolled, including 40 from ISD 2142, 18 from ISD 381/Lake Superior, and two from Rock Ridge. But 45 high school students are taking advantage of post-secondary option, or PSEO, where high school students take classes at nearby colleges. In those cases, the vast majority of state aid for the students flow to the college they are attending.
Elementary class sizes range from 19 in third grade to 34 in second grade.
High school class sizes range from 41 in the junior class to 56 in the tenth grade.

St. Louis County Schools
ISD 2142 experienced an increase of 15 students this year, with the biggest increase seen in Cherry, which grew from 496 to 515 and Northeast Range, which grew from 172 to 181. Tower-Soudan Elementary lost 10 students, South Ridge lost five, and North Woods gained two.
Total enrollment for the district stands at 1,664. But this is still less than a one-percent increase from last year’s enrollment.
Vermilion Country School
After undergoing a merger with the East Range Academy of Technology and Science (ERATS) in Mt. Iron last summer, Vermilion Country School officials knew their enrollment would at least double. The new Mt. Iron campus of VCS is operating under the same educational model that has shown success in Tower.
Opening week numbers showed a much greater interest in the charter school than expected.
The Tower campus of the school, which offers grades 7–12, has enrolled 85 students, up from the 65 expected, and the Mt. Iron campus, which serves grades 9–12, ended its first week at 103 students, up from the 95 expected. This brings VCS’s total enrollment to 188, close to triple the enrollment from last year.