Decatur City Schools’ enrollment has lost roughly 400 students in the last four years and it’s going to take a community effort to reverse this trend, Superintendent Ed Nichols said this morning in his state-of-the-schools speech.

Nichols told the crowd at the Decatur-Morgan County Chamber of Commerce breakfast at Central United Methodist Church that Decatur’s enrollment is down to 8,417 students. It was 8,634 in 2011-12.

“If our community gets engaged in our schools, I think we’ll see that enrollment go up,” Nichols said.

Nichols said he is working with the Decatur City Schools Foundation to schedule up to 40 community meetings in the next few months. He will be seeking input on what citizens want from the school system.

He said the school system will need to cut and reallocate spending so it can spend more improving the city’s aging school facilities.