The Eudora school district continues to be financially pinched between steady growth and a temporary state funding formula that froze state aid at the 2014-2015 level.

Although the district won’t officially report its enrollment to the Kansas Department of Education until Sept. 20, it appears to be looking at an enrollment increase of 27 students from the 2015-2016 school year, Eudora Superintendent Steve Splichal said. The district’s official enrollment last year was 1,673.

Splichal shared preliminary numbers last week with the Eudora school board. The growth conforms with that predicted in an enrollment analysis the district conducted last year, which projected slow and steady growth.

The new students were distributed throughout grade levels, but elementary classes continue to lead the way in grade-level enrollment. Splichal said the fifth-grade class was the largest in the district, with 158 students. The first- and third-grade classes are tied for second largest, with 144 students each. There is no longer any grade level in the district with fewer than 100 students, he said.

The district hired one additional third-grade teacher to help with the enrollment increase, but the inevitable reality of two years of frozen funding is larger classroom sizes, Splichal said. The district also feels a budget squeeze as its costs and student numbers continue to increase while state aid remains the same.

The Kansas Legislature scuttled the state’s old funding formula in 2015 and put in place a block grant system that froze funding levels to districts while it worked to develop a new formula. Splichal said he was hopeful that a new formula would be adopted in the 2017 legislative session that conformed to state constitutional mandates of adequacy and equitable funding for the state’s districts.

“I’m very hopeful there will be a return to logic and common sense with some kind of per-student funding formula,” he said.