Juneau schools considering multi-age classes after enrollment shortfall
Published 2:30 pm Friday, September 11, 2026
Elementary staffing assignments could change this fall as the Juneau School District works to keep class sizes near its targets following an updated student count.
Enrollment after the first 10 days of school stood at 3,678 students as of Sept. 4, according to a report presented to the Board of Education on Tuesday, Sept. 8. The total is 89 students, or 2.36%, below the 3,767 students projected when the district developed its budget.
District administrators are meeting with elementary principals to evaluate staffing allocations and possible multi-age classroom arrangements, including K-1 and second- and third-grade combinations, Superintendent Shawn Arnold wrote in his report to the board. The district said the reviews are intended to maintain its target pupil-teacher ratios.
The updated numbers add another consideration to an FY27 budget already built around declining enrollment. Juneau projected 3,767 students for this school year, down from 3,832 used for FY26, according to the City and Borough of Juneau’s budget documents. The city projected state foundation funding would fall from $34.9 million in FY26 to $32.8 million in FY27.
Juneau’s Sept. 4 enrollment is also 131 students lower than the 3,809 counted on the same date last year, a 3.44% decrease. The district’s detailed enrollment report shows the largest difference at the beginning of the K-12 system: kindergarten enrollment fell from 239 students last year to 188 this fall, a decrease of 21.3%.
Those figures do not mean the district has lost the same number of continuing students. Last year’s 327 seniors left the K-12 system after graduation and were replaced by the smaller incoming kindergarten class. Comparing cohorts as they advanced one grade shows the students who were in kindergarten through 11th grade last September totaled eight more students in their corresponding first-through 12th-grade classes this year.
Some individual grades posted sizable changes when compared with the same grade a year earlier. Sixth grade has 283 students, 63 fewer than last year’s sixth-grade class, while seventh grade grew by 41 to 348. The latter figure closely tracks the 346 students who were sixth-graders last year.
The financial effect of the new enrollment total will become clearer after Alaska conducts its official fall student count. The state’s 20-school-day count period runs from Sept. 28 through Oct. 23, with FY27 average daily membership reports due Nov. 6. Average daily membership is a key part of Alaska’s school funding formula. Student counts are adjusted for factors including school size, district costs, special needs, and correspondence programs before being used to calculate state foundation funding, meaning an 89-student difference cannot simply be multiplied by the state’s base student allocation to determine a revenue loss.
Another source of state money is also tied to the eventual count. The district expects about $3.7 million in one-time FY27 education funding, according to its September finance report, but that estimate was calculated using its projected average daily membership and can change after the official fall count and final reconciliation.
Finance staff listed the ADM reconciliation among several factors they will monitor as the budget is adjusted this fall, along with special education contracting costs, employee health insurance waivers and districtwide vacancies.
The district entered FY27 expecting to draw $5.7 million from its fund balance. The budget adopted by the city appropriates about $97.2 million across district operations and special revenue, including approximately $43.4 million in estimated state support.
Juneau has dealt with declining enrollment for years, a trend that was among the factors behind the district’s consolidation of schools in 2024. This fall’s official state count will determine whether the gap between enrollment and the district’s budget assumptions narrows before funding calculations are finalized.
