School enrollment across the board in Kenosha is relatively flat, going down slightly west of the interstate and increasing in the Kenosha Unified School District.

Although there were 178 more students in Unified, that’s fairly close to what officials planned, with most of that coming from 141 new students in the 4-year-old kindergarten program.

All schools in the state counted heads last Friday and are conducting final tallies this week in order to report official enrollment numbers to the state Department of Public Instruction. Those figures are used for state funding and to determine how much can be spent per student.

In addition to counting physical bodies present that day, districts can account for absent students and half-day kindergarten students. Open enrollment in and out of the districts is also included.

School districts have, by law, 14 days after the third friday in September to find additional students. Those extra students can count if they were in school at least one day before the Sept. 18 count, and one day after.

At the high school level, Unified saw numbers drop by 53 at Bradford, 59 at Tremper and 32 at Indian Trail Academy. That could largely be attributed to Harborside Academy increasing by 109 as it adds a junior class, and eSchool, which increased by 33. Bradford is still over capacity by 247 students, and Tremper is over capacity by 220.

All told in Unified there are 138 more elementary students, an increase of 1.2 percent; 19 fewer middle schoolers, for a decrease of 0.4 percent; and 59 more in all the high schools, for an increase of 0.8 percent.

West of the Interstate, initial figures, based on pupils present Friday, show Lakewood School in Twin Lakes, Wheatland Center School, Trevor-Wilmot schools and Wilmot High School filled more seats this year than last year.

Lakewood reported the largest enrollment gain of 17 students.

Wilmot High School’s enrollment increased for a fifth straight year. It is a trend that helps the district obtain state aid as the formula uses a three-year rolling average.

However, given reduced funding by the state, increased enrollment alone hasn’t been enough to equate to an increase in state aid.

“We are still getting less, but the decrease in state aid didn’t have the impact it had on other schools because we are seeing positive growth,” said Wilmot Administrator Bill Heitman.

Fewer students than last year were counted at Brighton, Central High School, Riverview, Paris, Bristol and Salem.

Salem School District, which had the largest decline in student population, has been seeing declining enrollments over the past five years. Administrator David Milz said the trend continued this year, with last year’s graduating eighth-grade class of 121 students replaced by an incoming kindergarten class this school year of just 89 students.

The decline will certainly lead to a further cut in state aid, Milz said, although the final figures are not yet calculated.

“The bottom line is that it does mean further challenges for our budget,” Milz said.

— Kenosha News reporters Gary Kunich, Jill Tatge-Rozell and Deneen Smith contributed to this story.