Southern Illinois News

Egyptian Community Unit School District 5 had the highest enrollment among Alexander County districts, welcoming 342 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, 50.3% of them were girls, and 49.7% were boys.

Data also showed that the majority of students were white, making up 80.1% of the Egyptian Community Unit School District 5's total enrollment.

Among the two districts in Alexander County, Cairo Unit School District 1 ranked second in enrollment numbers with 271 students.

Egyptian Community Unit School District 5 roughly covers schools within Alexander County with its main office in Tamms.

In the previous school year, Egyptian Community Unit School District 5 also had the highest number of students among Alexander 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
Egyptian Community Unit School District 5	Tamms	342
Cairo Unit School District 1	Cairo	271