The Minot Public School district has experienced a slight decrease in enrollment, according to data presented to the MPS School Board at its regular meeting on Thursday, Jan. 8.

Superintendent Scott Faul brought the issue to the board’s attention in sharing numbers from the end of the first semester of the school year, which showed an average daily membership of 7,405 students, down about 170 from the end of the 2024-2025 school year.

“Just wanted you to be aware of that, and that we are constantly monitoring that. At the start of this semester we have had 10 new families enroll, so they’re in process of paperwork. So, we will see a little bit of an increase,” Faul said. “It’s something that we want to monitor as our funding is tied to student counts.”

Board member Sabrina Herrmann asked what explanations there were for dips in enrollment, and Faul said the district did have some data for the destinations of outgoing students and could include that in future reports, which he said would be delivered every quarter.

“It really does ebb and flow. When you split those between 18 schools, the loss in any one school is not significant for section changes or anything like that,” Faul said. “We’re going to go to quarter, because when we focus on it month-to-month, I think we really jump to conclusions. At a quarterly rate you’ll still get an idea on what we’re dealing with without having to emphasize it on a monthly basis.”