South West Illinois News

Waterloo Community Unit School District 5 had the highest enrollment among Monroe County districts, welcoming 2,676 students during the 2021-22 school year, according to the Illinois State Board of Education report.

Of all the students welcomed in the 2021-22 school year, 50.6% of them were boys, and 49.4% were girls.

Data also showed that the majority of students were white, making up 94.7% of the Waterloo Community Unit School District 5's total enrollment.

Among the three districts in Monroe County, Columbia Community Unit School District 4 ranked second in enrollment numbers with 1,960 students, while Valmeyer Community Unit School District 3 welcomed 349 students and ranked third in the 2021-22 school year.

Waterloo Community Unit School District 5 roughly covers schools within Monroe County with its main office in Waterloo.

In the previous school year, Waterloo Community Unit School District 5 also had the highest number of students among Monroe County districts.

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.

District	City (main office)	Total Enrollment
Waterloo Community Unit School District 5	Waterloo	2,676
Columbia Community Unit School District 4	Columbia	1,960
Valmeyer Community Unit School District 3	Valmeyer	349