Student Enrollment Data

Student enrollment is monitored throughout the year through the Minnesota Automated Reporting Student System (MARSS).  MARSS is an individual student record system that serves as the Department of Education’s primary reporting system for student data.

The Minnesota Automated Reporting Student System (MARSS) collects student data required by more than one area of the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning (the Department) via one system. MARSS has eliminated a significant number of paper reports and other duplicate reporting that districts previously experienced. Data collected via MARSS are used for a variety of purposes, including state aid and levy calculations, federal grant allocations, federal and state civil rights reporting, unduplicated child count, and National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports. The year-end financial aid calculations that utilize data collected via MARSS include general education revenue, shared time foundation aid, private alternative school aid, adult high school graduation aid and fund balance adjustment. Fall MARSS data are used to allocate federal block grant, Title 1, drug education dollars, and learning readiness aid; they are also used to calculate a district's child count for special education funding.

Due to the wide use of the MARSS data it is imperative that districts report complete and accurate MARSS data in a timely manner. Without such data, much of the districts' state and federal money cannot be allocated. And, without accurate and timely MARSS data, districts may find themselves reporting the same information to the Department several times, defeating one of the primary purposes of MARSS.

School districts may create output reports using MARSS data to estimate final revenues, bill tuition for nonresident students, complete grant applications and for planning. For districts who enroll nonresident students MARSS data may be used to create output reports listing these students, their attendance, membership, Average Daily Membership (ADM) and weighted ADM for submission to the resident districts. Districts no longer need to manually create this report.

MARSS is designed such that the district which provides primary service to the student reports the student. This is not always the resident district. Several data elements are utilized to determine which district generates the state aid or grant allocation for a particular student. For example, to determine which district generates general education revenue, the student's State Aid Category and Student Resident District Number and Type are considered.