📜 CROSWELL-LEXINGTON COMMUNITY SCHOOLS
Dear readers, the ledger has made its way to Croswell-Lexington recently, but not for the new step I've been using.
This one left me with a rather simple question. 🪶
According to MI School Data/CEPI staffing records, from 2014-15 to 2024-25:
🎓 Students: 2,250 → 1,708
📉 Down 24.1%
🍎 Teacher FTE: 115.20 → 83.97
📉 Down 27.1%
Meanwhile...
🏛� School Administrator FTE: 6.01 → 6.35
📈 Up 5.7%
📋 School Administrative Support FTE: 11.60 → 15.10
📈 Up 30.2%
Now, Lady Budgetdown understands that enrollment changes. Staffing needs change. Job responsibilities change. And an FTE is a measure of staffing time, not necessarily a count of individual employees.
But numbers moving in opposite directions are precisely the sort of thing that makes my pencil stop.
How did Croswell-Lexington lose roughly one-quarter of its students and roughly one-quarter of its teacher FTE, while school administrative FTE and school administrative-support FTE increased?
There may be a perfectly reasonable explanation. I simply think it is worth asking the question. So for now, I shall leave the numbers right here on the table.
And perhaps keep the inkwell nearby. 👀🪶
Source: MI School Data / CEPI - Registry of Educational Personnel (REP), 2014-15 and 2024-25 district-level staffing data.
Receipts aren't very useful if we only keep the convenient ones.
With receipts and respect. 🪶
#LadyBudgetdown #CroswellLexington #SchoolFinance #EducationTransparency #FiscalAccountability #FollowTheNumbers #PublicSchools