By Tanner Kent

Despite several years of declining enrollments across the region, several school districts enjoyed pleasant surprises this fall.

Take Nicollet. One of the region’s smaller school districts, Nicollet’s enrollment has been holding steady at about 310 students. But this year, the district enrolled 341 students.

The jump may not seem like much, but the 33-student gain from last year amounts to an 11 percent increase. Spread across all grade levels, those 33 students could generate abouts $170,000 in additional state aid.

But any additional funds are welcome, said St. Clair Supt. Tom Bruels, in this time of deferred aid payments and frozen state funding.

“We didn’t intentionally look for extra students,” said Bruels, whose district also enjoyed a surprising enrollment gain. “But, for some reason, more students have decided to come to school in St. Clair. And we’re very happy to have them.

In 2004-05, St. Clair tallied more than 650 students. In the five years since, the district has lost about a dozen students a year.

But this year, Bruels said, the district attracted about 13 additional students through open enrollment.

“We’re very happy with where we’re at,” he said.

For some, it appears that state enrollment projections are beginning to play out.

A 2006 report by the Fiscal Analysis Department of the Minnesota House of Representatives showed that enrollments have been declining across the state for much of this decade. The report predicted by 2009, almost 80 percent of all districts would be in a phase of declining enrollment. In terms of region, south-central Minnesota was predicted to have the second-highest percentage (89) of districts with declining enrollment.

But a separate report, produced in June 2009 by the Minnesota State Demographic Center, predicted that statewide enrollment would increase 7 percent between 2008-09 and 2018-19.

For some districts — Mankato, Waseca, St. Peter, Montgomery-Lonsdale and Blue Earth Area are a few of the larger districts that posted gains this year — the trend is playing out.

But for others, it appears this year is only bringing more of the same.

The numbers declined again in New Ulm, a community whose struggles with enrollment decline have been well-documented. In the last five years, New Ulm has lost about 300 students and was forced to close a middle school.

But Supt. Harold Remme said this year’s dip —about 15 students — was more manageable. He added that even with the decrease, the district will still benefit from a small increase in state aid (each student is weighted according to several factors for funding purposes, so year-to-year shifts as students are moved in and out of programs are not uncommon).

“Definitely, this year was better than previous years,” Remme said.

Maple River, too, is facing another decline.

But Supt. Willis Schoeb said that, like New Ulm, the descent seems to have slowed since fall 2007 when the district lost more than 40 students.

“(The decline) will continue, I believe, for the next two years,” he said. “We’ll just have to adjust one year at a time.”