State of Montana Newsroom
Superintendent Arntzen to Open Spring 2024 Student Enrollment Count
HELENA - Superintendent Elsie Arntzen will open the Spring student enrollment count that contributes to the Average Number Belonging (ANB) calculation on February 5, 2024. ANB is the foundation calculation for school district budgeting and funding purposes. The funding formula is based on factors that include student enrollment on two count dates (October and February), Pupil-Instruction-Related (PIR) days, and an average school year of 180 days. ANB is used to determine multiple entitlements that are used to calculate the school BASE and maximum general fund budget limits for the following fiscal year. The student enrollment count must be submitted to the Office of Public Instruction no later than February 13, 2024.
“Montana schools are resilient,” said Superintendent Elsie Arntzen. “Teaching and learning focuses on our Montana students. This why I have updated our state content standards, revised our school quality rules, and reimagined student assessment through the innovative MAST program.”
Montana’s fall student count for ANB from Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 – 2023 was:
- 2015: 143,412
- 2016: 144,282
- 2017: 145,601
- 2018: 145,923
- 2019: 146,909
- 2020: 148,195
- 2021: 144,850
- 2022: 148,508
- 2023: 149,787
The fall student enrollment count for FY 2024 was 147,979, which is 1,808 less students than FY 2023. The decreases were:
- Elementary student count was down 1,323 students
- Middle School student count was down 388 students
- High School student count was down 97 students
This spring student enrollment count for ANB will be averaged with the fall collection to determine ANB. The ANB information will be available at the beginning of March 2024.
###