New Mason City superintendent says enrollment numbers is an issue he wants to address (AUDIO)

MASON CITY — The new superintendent of the Mason City Community School District says attempting to grow enrollment will be one of his priorities.

Pat Hamilton is just finishing up his second month on the job and appeared on the “Ask the Mayor” program earlier today on AM-1300 KGLO. He says he anticipates enrollment numbers will be down when they are finalized in the near future. “Mason City has seen through the years a decline in their enrollment. We won’t really know exact enrollment counts until after October 1st, which is our enrollment day. We’re anticipating that enrollment is going to be down some, and when your revenues are all generated by the number of students you serve, that’s always a challenge of getting a ratio of teachers to students right that you can be financially viable and have those programs and services that we need to have for our students, so that’s going to be a challenge.”

Hamilton says having a strong education system helps bring students into the school system and people into the community.  “One of the biggest strengths of a community is its education system. I think those attract businesses, so the stronger we can make our education system and the more supports we can get for students, and the more we can work in our community and businesses know that we are going to prepare a student that can walk out of our door and go to work for them day one and be a productive worker or a productive citizen for the community is an attraction to any business that wanted to relocate.”

Hamilton has been an educator for over 30 years and comes to the Mason City district from Spencer, where he was the director of student services.

You can listen back to comments from Hamilton from today’s “Ask the Mayor” program via the audio player below.