Wichita school employee-student ratio drops

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In my article Wichita schools: why so many employees? I illustrated the rise in the number of USD 259, the Wichita public school district, employees per student. The number of students per certified employee has been dropping rapidly, from 13.7 students per employee to 10.9 over a period of 12 years. In percentage terms, that’s 20.4%.

Someone asked about all Wichita school district employees. I gathered some numbers from the district’s comprehensive annual report for the 2007-2008 school year. (The report for the 2008-2009 school year, the most recent complete year, should have been posted in December 2009, according to the district’s website. It’s not there as of this writing.)

Here’s a chart using these figures:

Wichita school employees per student

For the 1998-1999 school year, there were 8.55 Wichita public school students for each employee. For 2007-2008, that number dropped to 6.74 students per employee. That’s a decrease of 21% over a period of nine years, meaning that employee costs per student have been rising rapidly.