G-E-T enrollment shows slight uptick

The Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau school district saw its overall enrollment tick upward and its open enrollment gap decrease to its lowest level in a decade, according to an annual count compiled last month.

The third Friday in September count showed 1,423 kids in the district this year, including 1,408 in their five schools, 10 three-year-old kids who the district provides in-home or daycare services for and five 4K students at Head Start.

The 1,408 students in the five schools (up from 1,398 last year) includes 380 at the high school (down from 411 in 2024-25), 304 at the middle school (up from 286), 329 at Trempealeau Elementary (up from 309), 275 at Galesville Elementary (up from 263) and 120 at Ettrick Elementary (down from 124). 

The third Friday count also tallied 99 kids in the district’s 4K program in their first year of full-day 4K.

District business manager Cary Brommerich presented the G-E-T school board with a brief overview of the 2025-26 budget and the newest enrollment numbers at their regular October meeting last Monday. The budget is fully updated and presented at the district’s annual meeting after the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) releases general school aid numbers in mid-October, which in this case happened to be two days after G-E-T’s regular monthly meeting.

The 2025-27 state biennial budget has total general aid funding (including equalization, special adjustment and integration aids) for Wisconsin’s 421 public school districts coming in at $5.58 billion for the 2025-26 school year, the same as 2024-25.

The DPI numbers released last Wednesday showed that general aid for the G-E-T school district will see a 2.12% increase from last year, bumping up from $11,901.509 in 2024-25 to $12,153,849 in 2025-26.

Brommerich told the Times that this increase was a pleasant surprise, as the district’s original estimate was $11,971,866 — much closer to the aid amount from last year. Thanks to this aid increase, Brommerich said the total amount the district will receive from property taxes will decrease by over $180,000 from the original projection of $6,556,125 to an updated number of $6,374,142.

For the 2025-26 school year, 64% of the district’s revenue limit will come from equalization aid and 36% will come from local property taxes.

The budget shown at last Monday’s meeting featured $22,287,617 in both total revenues and expenses and, according to Brommerich, won’t change significantly based on the finalized state aid numbers.

In early October, the district learned their equalized property value number from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, which revealed a 10.39% total increase for the municipalities that make up the district. Brommerich said this was higher than the 5% increase they were anticipating, which helps them control the mill rate. 

Original projections had the district’s mill rate decreasing from $7.04 last year to $6.94 in 2025-26. However, following the higher-than-anticipated level of state aid, Brommerich’s new proposal for the annual meeting was to lower the mill rate to $6.61.

Brommerich also noted the district’s revenue per student is $13,396, comfortably above the minimum of $11,000 required by the state.

“A lot of schools in the state are pushing that $11,000 mark, so we’re in a good spot when we look at our revenue per member,” Brommerich said last Monday.

According to an informational paper published in early 2025 by Russ Kava of the state’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau, for the purpose of calculating revenue limits, “a district’s enrollment is the sum of its pupil count taken on the third Friday in September plus 40% of its full-time equivalent (FTE) summer enrollment in academic summer classes or laboratory periods that are for necessary academic purposes, as defined in administrative rule by DPI.”

G-E-T’s third Friday count showed 1,399 full-time students in the district. That was combined with their summer FTE number of 35 (40% of 87 students) for a total of 1,424, up from 1,420 in 2024-25 and 1,412 in 2023-24.

A three-year rolling average of this number is used when determining the revenue limit. G-E-T’s rolling average bumped up from 1,404 last year to 1,422 for 2025-26 and, Brommerich said, that average would increase again by about five if enrollment numbers hold steady next year.

In terms of open enrollment, the G-E-T school district has 124 kids enrolling out and 109 enrolling in this year for a gap of -15. Last year, it was 133 kids enrolling out and 99 kids enrolling in for a gap of -34.

“The gap is the smallest we’ve seen it in the last 10 years, 15 kids,” Brommerich said. “Huge kudos. Hopefully with that all-day 4K, we’ll be able to continue to see that number get even smaller.”