The Davenport School Board reports that student enrollment is down in 2014 by about 220 students since this time last year.
That is about a 1.4 million dollar revenue loss that the district can't afford right now, especially while trying to cut 6 to 8 million dollars from their budget over the next two years.
State funding is based on student enrollment, so when the state of Iowa sees the major drop, they will cut their funding accordingly.
"We are, at this point, in a very desperate situation. Unless we get adequate, allowable growth, this district is going to continue to struggle," said Rich Clewell, Vice President of the Davenport School Board.
Patt Zamora, a former Davenport School Board member who served the district for 16 years, gave some insight as to why she thinks this may be happening.
"If you compare us to Bettendorf and the other school districts on the Iowa side, we have a different population than they do and we have different challenges," said Zamora. "We have many special programs, such as autistic, the kids at Annie Whittenmeyer, a great many special-ed kids, and the hearing impaired. So it isn't really fair to compare our scores to theirs and yet that's what people do constantly."
"I think there are people who do not appreciate our diverse population. We have beautiful diversity in this district, and some people just may not understand or really desire that," Zamora said. "We welcome our diverse population. We have all kinds of programs that fit the needs of all our diverse kids and the perception isn't our problem. The perception is the problem of people who aren't knowledgeable of what we have to offer and the beauty of diversity."
Clewell added that recent changes may also be a factor in low student enrollment, such as new school boundaries, transfer policies, and bell times.
Clewell stressed that the district is doing everything they can to retain and attract new students to Davenport schools.
Some those programs include the new creative arts academy downtown, the dual credit program between Davenport North and Scott Community College, and the "five-year track" career program offered at Davenport West High School.
"Nobody else is doing what we're doing with these kids in the state of Iowa. We have the programs in place, we have the right things going on, but it's going to take some time, and it's also going to take these collaborative efforts because the school district alone cannot make these changes happen, it is a cultural shift," said Clewell.
The Davenport School Board said they have started a study group to figure out exactly why student enrollment is so low and hope to have the official reasons in a few weeks.