Southern Illinois News

Alexander County schools welcomed 603 students in the 2023-24 school year, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

This is a decrease of 10.4% from the previous school year, when there were 673 students enrolled in the county.

Alexander County had the fourth lowest enrollment numbers in the state.

Of all the students welcomed at the time, 51.9% identified as female, and 48.1% as male.

The most represented ethnicity among Alexander County students was white, making up about 46.3% of all the students.

Within Alexander County, Cairo Elementary School had the highest enrollment in the school year, welcoming 174 students.

As of the 2023-24 school year, Illinois public schools enrolled approximately 1.85 million students across nearly 4,000 schools. There was roughly one teacher for every 15 students, slightly better than the national average of 1:16.

K-12 enrollment has been declining in Illinois for many years, reflecting the state's demographic changes. Between the 2019–20 and 2022–23 school years, Illinois public school enrollment declined from approximately 1.98 million to 1.85 million students, a decrease of about 127,000 students or 6.4%. This decline is significantly higher than the typical annual decreases of 0.5% to 1.5% observed in the preceding years, reflecting broader demographic shifts within the state.

School	City	Enrollment
Cairo Elementary School	Cairo	174
Cairo Junior/Senior High School	Cairo	118
Egyptian Elementary School	Tamms	156
Egyptian Junior High School	Tamms	70
Egyptian Senior High School	Tamms	85