Superintendent says enrollment is slightly down while special needs, newcomers and homelessness are driving costs ahead of April 7 referendum

Greg Harches, superintendent of the Appleton Area School District, said in a video message that the district’s third‑Friday‑of‑September enrollment this year was 14,866 and that a modest multi‑year decline in students has not eased budget pressures because student needs have grown.

“This year our third Friday of September enrollment was 14,866,” Harches said, adding that the five‑year trend is “relatively flat” though the district’s kindergarten cohorts are smaller than earlier senior classes.

Harches said the district’s enrollment history shows growth through about 2015–16 and a slowdown afterward; he linked local changes to a broader fall in state births, saying births in Wisconsin declined about 16% between 2008 and 2020.

The superintendent emphasized that many district expenses are fixed — buildings, utilities, insurance and busing — so incremental student losses do not produce equivalent budget savings. “We have to heat a building whether it has 500 students in that building or it has 450 students,” he said, and noted that losing a handful of bus riders, for example, generally does not reduce route costs.

Harches outlined specific cost drivers the district faces. He said the district has invested more than $30 million in school safety and security over the past 12 years, beginning with the 2014 referendum, and called out rising technology costs, including cybersecurity spending now at about $500,000 a year. “Five years ago, we didn’t spend any money on cyber security. We now spend $500,000 a year on cyber security,” he said.

Programmatic investments funded by prior referendums are also factors, Harches said. He noted the 2022 referendum-supported reductions in elementary class sizes, new literacy materials, literacy coaches and interventionists, and expanded STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) programming. He said youth apprenticeship participation at the high school level is increasing but is an expensive program to run.

Harches highlighted changes in student needs. He said the number of students identified for special education rose from about 2,170 roughly a decade ago to about 2,520 now, increasing the district’s share of students requiring services. He also said students with “high‑cost” needs — defined in his remarks as those that exceed $30,000 per student — rose from 27 in 2021–22 to 128 in the most recent year.

The superintendent said newcomers — students new to the United States and to Appleton — climbed from under 10 in earlier years to about 13 in 2020, nearly 50 in 2022 and more than 130 in 2024; he estimated roughly half of those newcomers have refugee backgrounds and may require language, transportation and trauma supports.

Harches also said the district’s count of students experiencing homelessness during the school year rose from roughly 300 historically to about 500 in 2022, about 600 in 2024 and “well over 600” last year.

He framed the video as informational ahead of a district referendum scheduled for April 7 and said viewers should expect additional videos in the series as the vote approaches.

The video did not record a board vote or other formal action; Harches presented figures and program descriptions and urged viewers to consider the context ahead of the referendum.