ENROLLMENT IN FREEMAN HOLDING STEADY

Overall totals dip slightly, but numbers at Freeman Public remain as high as they have been in more than 15 years

The number of students attending Freeman Public Schools and Freeman Academy at the start of the 2024-25 school year was nearly identical to that of one year ago, with both school systems showing a decrease of one student.

Freeman Public — which includes K-8 educational centers in the two Hutterite colonies located in the district, Tschetter and Wolf Creek — has dropped from 419 to 418 students enrolled in K-12. That does not, however, include the preschool/junior kindergarten program implemented this year. That classroom includes 20 students, the max offered by the district.

The largest class at Freeman Public is the freshmen with 39, which helps account for the largest high school enrollment since the fall of 2012.

And there is just one class at Freeman Public that has fewer than 20 students — the kindergarten class of 14. That is the smallest kindergarten class since all-day, every day kindergarten was implemented at Freeman Public since 1999 (due in large part to the establishment of junior kindergarten). Only twice before has an incoming kindergarten class been under 20; the class size was 18 in both the fall of 2018 and the fall of 2004.

At Freeman Academy, this year’s enrollment may be down one but actually shows an increase at the high school level — from 27 last fall to 32 at the start of this term. The largest class at the school is the juniors with 12, and the seventh-grade class shows an enrollment of just one.

And FA is not offering a kindergarten curriculum this year — something the school implemented in the fall of 2019.

The enrollment numbers published here are preliminary; schools don’t submit their official report to the state until the end of September.

Watch for enrollment numbers from the Marion and Menno school district next week.