West Central Reporter

The only school district in Brown County suffered a drop in enrollment numbers in the 2021-22 school year, according to the Illinois State Board of Education report.

There were 674 students in the halls of Brown County Community Unit School District 1 schools, 4.1% lower than the year before.

The enrollment numbers in Brown County amplified the state's declining trend, showing a sharper decrease in student numbers than the state average.

Of all the students welcomed in the 2021-22 school year, 50.4% of them were boys, and 49.6% were girls.

Data also showed that the majority of students were white, making up 93.9% of the Brown County Community Unit School District 1's total enrollment.

Brown County Community Unit School District 1 has a main office in Mount Sterling and is the only school district within Brown County.

In 2022, Illinois had 1,925,415 students enrolled in a total of almost 4,000 schools. There were 130,467 teachers in the public schools, or roughly one teacher for every 15 students, compared to the national average of 1:16.

K-12 enrollment has been declining in Illinois for several years, influenced by demographic changes. Between the 2019–2020 and 2020–2021 school years, public and private K-12 enrollment fell by 3% (60,900 students), a significantly larger decline than the typical 0.5% to 1.5% annual decreases seen in the state over the last five years.

School	Total Enrollment in 2021-22	Total Enrollment in 2020-21	Total % Change
Brown County Elementary School	272	280	-2.9%
Brown County High School	215	216	-0.5%
Brown County Middle School	187	207	-9.7%