Southern Illinois News

Pulaski County schools welcomed 756 students in the 2023-24 school year, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

This is a decrease of 1.7% from the previous school year, when there were 769 students enrolled in the county.

Pulaski County had the 10th lowest enrollment numbers in the state.

Of all the students welcomed at the time, 50.7% identified as female, and 49.3% as male.

The most represented ethnicity among Pulaski County students was white, making up about 55.3% of all the students.

Within Pulaski County, Meridian Elementary School had the highest enrollment in the school year, welcoming 232 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
Century Elementary School	Ullin	174
Century Junior/Senior High School	Ullin	151
Meridian Elementary School	Mounds	232
Meridian High School	Mounds	199