You may have heard this story before. In fact, I wrote a nearly identical sentence around this time last year.

But enrollment keeps falling as staffing levels rise. Since 2018-19, the last year before the pandemic, student enrollment is down 1.4 million (a 2.8% decrease) while employment is up by 479,000 (a gain of 7.3%).

Part of the staffing gains comes as the result of schools adding 90,000 teacher jobs. Combined with declining enrollment numbers, that has allowed most states and districts to effectively lower their teacher-to-student ratios.

However, most of the employment gains are not coming from classroom teachers. In raw numbers, from 2018-19 to 2024-25 schools added 389,000 non-teaching jobs.

The gains are widespread across staffing categories. The numbers of district administrators and support staffers are up 25.9% and 16.9%, respectively. But so are school-based roles including paraprofessionals (up 16.6%) and guidance counselors (up 12.2%). To help address student attendance and mental health needs, schools have also added 22.4% more support service staff, which NCES defines as employees 鈥渨ho nurture but do not instruct students鈥� and includes 鈥渁ttendance officers; staff providing health, speech pathology, audiology or social services; and supervisors of the preceding staff; coaches, athletic advisers and athletic trainers.鈥�

Only two categories of school employees, librarians and media support staff, did not see an increase over this six-year time period. That continues a over the last few decades as schools employ fewer full-time librarians.

Analysts like myself and of a fiscal cliff once the infusion of federal COVID relief funds, appropriated between March 2020 and March 2021, stopped flowing. That money is long gone now, and yet schools continue to hire. Were we all wrong?

We were certainly off on the timing. Back in 2022, when I was part of the team at the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, we a 鈥渂loodletting鈥� in the 2024-25 school year. As I write this in early 2026, with schools continuing to add staff, that projection looks wildly overblown.

One reason we got the call wrong is that we underestimated how much governments were using their one-time federal funds to shore up funds and build up their budget reserves. More importantly, the broader economy has better than many experts anticipated.
But perhaps we were just too early. After all, the fundamentals have not changed. Because schools are largely funded based on how many students they serve, lower enrollments will translate into lower revenue totals. And by hiring more people and salaries, districts have committed themselves to much higher personnel costs. These trends cannot continue to move in opposite directions forever. 

Meanwhile, while the NCES employment figures cited above are the most accurate measure of total staff time available in schools, they take time to collect. The Bureau of Labor Statistics collects monthly data on the total number of employees in a given industry or sector. That information comes out faster, and the latest numbers that public school employment may be starting to plateau. 

For now, there鈥檚 still no sign of a peak or cliff in either data source, but what happens next will largely depend on the direction of the broader economy.  

But look at the odds you face if you鈥檙e not white or Asian. In L.A, only 3% of Hispanic elementary students and 4% of Black students attend a school where 7 of 10 kids are reading at grade level. This shocking data comes from the California Department of Education.

My organization, Available to All, is a nonprofit watchdog that defends equal access to public schools. Our analysis of state data shines a light on the 456 zoned elementary schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the K-5 or K-6 schools that are the default assignment for hundreds of thousands of L.A. children. Over 190,000 children attended these schools in 2023-24, the last year for which data is available. Of these 456 schools, only 39 have 70% of their students reading at grade level. At 105 of these schools, fewer than 30% of kids are reading proficiently.

What is absolutely crucial to understand is that discrepancies of this size can exist only if a government entity enforces them. Imagine for a moment two post offices. At one, 70% of letters and packages get delivered as promised. It鈥檚 not great, but we鈥檒l call it pretty good. At the other post office, 3 out of 4 packages get lost or damaged, and only 25% arrive on time and in their original condition.

As soon as this data became public, people would stop going to the bad post office. Hundreds of people would drive to the pretty good post office, even if it was much farther away. Long lines would form outside the door. The bad post office would have to improve or face an empty lobby.

So the question is this: How does LAUSD enforce these discrepancies? How does it prevent tens of thousands of families from lining up outside the doors of those few elementary schools where most of the kids can read? The answer is attendance zones. The district draws a meandering line around each elementary school, determining who is and who isn鈥檛 allowed to attend.

The problem is, of course, that these coveted schools are located in some of the priciest parts of town. The lines typically encircle expensive single-family homes that are on large lots. What鈥檚 more, the home prices in these zones are distorted because the house comes with exclusive access to a desirable public school. 鈥淚 know it sounds expensive,鈥� the real estate agent will say, 鈥渂ut if you buy a home in this zone, you won鈥檛 have to pay for private school.鈥�

These are quasi-private schools for wealthy Angelenos, but they鈥檙e operated on the public鈥檚 dime. Our research has shown that Los Angeles is one of many cities where coveted elementary schools have attendance zones that from the 1930s. Once again, families in less wealthy areas are boxed out, especially African-American and Hispanic kids, as well as working- and middle-class people of all races.

What鈥檚 incredible is that such exclusivity is possible in a system that has so many half-empty schools. f of L.A.鈥檚 elementary schools 鈥� 225 of 456 鈥� have seen enrollment drop by more than 50% in the last 15 years. You would expect that, with so much overcapacity, families would have their pick of public schools.

Even the highest-performing schools are below their full capacity. In the 39 elementary schools with over 70% of kids reading at grade level, enrollment is down by over 7,000. That鈥檚 7,000 seats that could be available to students who are currently assigned to failing schools, often within a mile or two.

California鈥檚 1994 requires the district to make open seats available to students who live outside school attendance zones. But LAUSD has treated this policy as voluntary, as recently as 2018 that it is their choice whether to report open seats. Thus, these 39 schools reported only 58 open seats for this school year 鈥� less than 2% of what we鈥檇 expect to see based on their historical enrollment.

Of the 39 high-performing elementary schools, 15 of them are 鈥渁ffiliated conversion charters,鈥� meaning they are operated by LAUSD but don鈥檛 have to participate in Open Enrollment. However, they are required by the state鈥檚 charter school law to hold a lottery for any open seats.   My organization called each of these schools, and 14 indicated that they could not accept any applicants from outside the zone, since they were 鈥渇ull.鈥� But, again, these schools are well below their historical peak enrollment and should have at least 2,589 seats available.

The hard truth is this: Principals in these high-performing, zoned schools do not seem to want to make their open seats available to children outside the zone. Doing so might threaten the exclusive nature of the school, and that exclusivity is exactly what families are paying for when they take out their oversized mortgages.

But it doesn鈥檛 have to be this way. In the 20 years since Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans has abolished attendance zone assignments. Test scores are up, as are graduation rates and college enrollment. In California, the state legislature ended geographic assignment for community colleges in the 1980s. In the years after this reform, enrollment rebounded after years of decline. Today, the community college system is a crown jewel of the state, championed by Republicans and Democrats alike.

America was built on the idea that even a kid from the wrong side of the tracks can go on to become a business owner, a doctor, a politician, a professor or a general in the military. History has proven that to be true. But here in the 21^st century, middle-class and low-income kids are blocked from fulfilling their potential, locked out of the best public schools 鈥� even ones that their families’ tax dollars pay for. It鈥檚 not fair, it鈥檚 not just,and it鈥檚 time to make a change.

This formula has tremendous upside. It鈥檚 what cities like New Orleans, Denver and Indianapolis have done to great success. It鈥檚 also been a key ingredient behind Florida鈥檚 climb up the state achievement rankings.

Over the past two decades, Florida has added about 230,000 students, closed 214 schools and added 1,011 new ones. This churn has undoubtedly forced some hard decisions at the local level, but it has also improved the overall quality of schools statewide.

Last year, for instance, Florida gave 1,299 of 3,451 public schools an A on their state report card. Of those A-rated schools, 192 didn鈥檛 exist 10 years ago, and 483 didn鈥檛 exist 20 years ago. Last year, 47% of schools that predated 2004 received an A or B, compared with 69% of those that have opened since then.

The table below looks at the data in a slightly different way. It compares the performance of schools that existed in 2004 with how they did in 2024. Among schools that received an A in 2004, nearly half still earned top marks last year, and another 25% earned a B. For the most part, good schools tended to stay good.

But look at the bottom end. Among schools that earned an F in 2004, only 2% received an A in 2024. In fact, more than half the F-rated schools in 2004 had been closed by last year. In Florida, schools either got better or they shut down.

Table: Florida Schools Got Better 鈥� or Were Closed

This combination of opening more schools while closing underperforming ones can be hard to execute.听 And even when a school is underenrolled or underperforming, closing it can be disruptive. Some and have used those disruptions to argue that all this school choice and markets stuff of the past two decades is too much trouble, and that education policy should just stick with trying to improve existing neighborhood schools.

That might seem logical, but the evidence against school turnarounds has slowly changed my mind. For one thing, research around the No Child Left Behind law found that light-touch interventions like writing a school improvement plan did to change the trajectory of chronically underperforming schools. Big improvements required big changes.

Dramatic improvements are possible. Right now, for example, the Houston school district is making thanks to the of hard-charging superintendent Mike Miles. , is another case where a state takeover helped raise student achievement.

But these success stories are not the norm. Massachusetts, for example, has been unable to the Lawrence success story in other cities, and of state takeovers found they had no effect, on average. Similarly, Tennessee鈥檚 Achievement School District, which had charter management organizations take over chronically low-performing district schools, on middle school assessments, ACT college admissions tests or end-of-course exams.

In other words, it鈥檚 hard to make bad schools better. Not impossible, but very hard.

So what is Florida doing differently? It follows the , which focuses on developing a comprehensive set of high-quality and autonomous public schools. These are evaluated based on their performance and parent demand, and policymakers concentrate on cultivating a broad variety of high-quality options for families. 

This approach has contributed to citywide transformations in places like Denver and New Orleans. For example, Tulane University鈥檚 Doug Harris and a team of researchers that New Orleans students made large gains in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and that the average new school was almost always better than the average school that was closed or taken over. It was this effect 鈥� of closing lower-performing schools and replacing them with better-performing ones 鈥攖hat drove the citywide gains.

A comprehensive from the Center for Education Policy Analysis at the University of Colorado Denver found that Denver鈥檚 portfolio strategy also produced large gains. Thanks to a common regulatory framework, annual evaluations of school performance, the closure of low-performing schools, the creation of new schools and district-led turnaround efforts, Denver鈥檚 performance rose from the bottom fifth percentile of all districts statewide to the 60th percentile in English Language Arts and the 63rd in math.

The portfolio model is far from a panacea. It requires districts to take a more active role in helping parents make good choices among their options, and for city leaders to tackle thorny policy questions around transportation and students with special needs. The politics can also be hard, and localized interests tend to protect their school no matter how few students want to go there. One extreme example: a Chicago school with 28 students with 27 employees.

Political pushback against school closures led Chicago to adopt a moratorium on school closures and for Denver to retreat from its successful portfolio model. But these trends are also playing out in smaller ways in many parts of the country. As I noted last year, school shutdowns have been falling to modern lows, even amid widespread enrollment declines.

Yet, keeping underenrolled schools open carries steep financial costs, which can then be used as an argument against investing in other, more popular schools. And when districts pursue this scarcity mindset, they end up forcing parents to fight over whose kids get into the 鈥済ood鈥� schools. In Fairfax County, Virginia, where I live, the district has tinkered with the entry requirements for the , a selective magnet school, but has not created another one. New York City has similar fights over its specialized high schools, although 鈥� including charter school donor Whitney Tilson, Comptroller Brad Lander and state Sen. Jessica Ramos 鈥� called for creating more of them.

The same trends are playing out in Massachusetts, where Democrats mostly expanding charter schools even as the state鈥檚 charter sector impressive outcomes. (In fact, the research on high-performing charter networks has been possible only because they are so oversubscribed that they have to conduct random lotteries to see which kids get in!) And in Boston, the Metco program, a voluntary desegregation initiative that has produced amazing results for students since the late 1970s, still has only enough seats for the kids who want one.

But won鈥檛 expanding school choice options harm existing schools? Surprisingly, that fear hasn鈥檛 been borne out in the data. In fact, has found that schools with enrollment declines tend to receive more money thanks to various funding protections, and a bevy of research has found that forces existing schools to respond in ways that boost student achievement.

The portfolio model is certainly not the only way to improve school quality, but it is a particularly good fit for the current moment. As parents clamor for more choices, education policymakers should focus on providing a high-quality portfolio of options for them to choose from.

Public schools added 121,000 employees last year, even as they served 110,000 fewer students.

This is a continuation of recent trends. In per-student terms, public schools have hit new all-time staffing highs in each of the last three years.

社区黑料鈥檚 art and technology director, Eamonn Fitzmaurice, and I have been following these trends and mapping out how they鈥檙e changing across the country. We鈥檝e now updated our charts through the 2023-24 school year. Click on the map below to see what's happening in your community. 

Student/Teacher Ratio Growth

As in previous years, we screened out very small districts and those without sufficient data (marked in black). That allowed us to examine staffing and enrollment trends for over 9,500 districts, comprising 92% of K-12 students nationwide. We then compared the teacher and student counts from 2023-24 鈥� the most recent available 鈥� with the same figures for 2016-17. 

About one-quarter of districts had fewer teachers per student last year than they did seven years earlier. Those are shaded in orange or yellow. Districts in Alaska, Nevada and especially Florida are predominantly orange on the map, meaning they have higher student-to-teacher ratios than they did before the pandemic.

But many more districts are shaded blue or gray, meaning they serve fewer 鈥� or a lot fewer 鈥� students per teacher than they did seven years earlier. Overall, three-quarters of districts fell into one of these categories.

At the most extreme are places where student enrollment declined while the district added staff. There were almost 3,000 districts in this category. Chicago, for example, lost 55,000 students while adding 4,200 teachers. Fairfax County, in Virginia, lost 7,000 students but added almost 700 new teachers.

Slightly less extreme are districts that shrunk their staff counts, but not as fast as they lost students. For example, Santa Ana Unified in California reduced its teacher count by 14%, but it suffered a 30% decline in student enrollment. Similarly, San Antonio, Texas, reduced its teacher count by 7% as student enrollment fell 15%.

Another group of districts gained students, but they increased their teacher counts even faster. Chesterfield County in Virginia served 7% more students with 22% more teachers. Also in Virginia, Loudon County added 27% more teachers to serve 4% more students.

Thanks to an infusion of $190 billion in federal relief funds, schools have been on a hiring spree over the last few years. You can visibly see the effects of the federal money in some of the district charts. For example, before the pandemic, Los Angeles Unified was reducing its teacher count pretty much in line with its declining enrollment. But with the infusion of federal (and state) funds, Los Angeles kept staffing levels constant despite further enrollment declines. Gwinnett County in Georgia shows a similar bifurcated trend. Its staffing and enrollment lines were moving in tandem until the federal funds drove a rapid increase in hiring.

Two teams of highly regarded researchers found that the federal funds helped boost student achievement, and the staffing gains are surely part of that story. But policymakers should be worried that the elevated hiring levels won鈥檛 be sustainable without new investments.

As a hypothetical, I looked at what might happen if districts were forced to go back to the staffing ratios they had in 2018-19. In that scenario, public schools across the country would need to lay off the equivalent of 156,000 teachers (512,000 staff members overall). Large districts like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Gwinnett County, Dallas and Philadelphia would all need to lay off 10% or more of their teaching staff.  

Cuts of this magnitude are not on the immediate horizon. State investments in public education to grow last year, and many were able to build up their reserve funds or frontload some purchases like textbooks or equipment over the last few years. into those savings allow some districts to temporarily painful cuts.  

But a paper from the looked at district budget expenditures to estimate how many educator jobs were funded solely by federal COVID aid. They found that, in Washington state alone, roughly 8,400 teachers were hired with the federal funds.

Now that that money is gone, thousands of educators' jobs are at risk. Districts will either need to reduce staff counts or find other ways to pay them.

Scott Schmerelson, who has worked in the LA Unified School District for nearly four decades and has served on the board since 2015, was  by his board colleagues on Dec. 10.  

As board president, he succeeded , who is retiring.

A former LAUSD teacher, principal and administrator, Schmerelson assumed leadership of the board just before he begins his third and final term representing District 3, which covers parts of LA鈥檚 San Fernando Valley region.

In a phone interview, Schmerelson said he鈥檇 focus the board鈥檚 attention on fighting falling student enrollment in the remainder of the academic year, as pre-pandemic declines accelerated into long-term losses that may eventually force school closures.

鈥淚鈥檓 going to constantly, constantly talk about enrollment,鈥� Schmerelson said. 鈥淔or the school district to remain viable, we have to have students.鈥�

Schmerelson said he hoped LAUSD鈥檚 improving test scores would help attract students who may have left the district for private schools or home instruction.

He said as board president he鈥檒l also focus on issues including LAUSD鈥檚  and rising .  

It鈥檚 a tall order. But with nearly 40 years working in the district and close to a decade on the school board, Schmerelson believes he has the backing of his community.

As president, Schmerelson will help set the direction of the board鈥檚 policymaking and manage its operations. The LAUSD鈥檚 seven-member board sets the district鈥檚 policy, controls its budget and hires the superintendent.

This fall Schmerelson overcame an aggressive campaign from opponent Dan Chang, a math teacher at James Madison Middle School in North Hollywood, who focused much of his election messaging on the need to tame waste and corruption in the school district.

Chang and his backers, including the state charter school association鈥檚 political arm, spent more than $5.6 million promoting his campaign. 厂肠丑尘别谤别濒蝉辞苍鈥檚 backers, including the local teacher union, spent about $2.5 million, .

In the end, Chang landed behind Schmerelson with 48% of the vote, while Schmerelson got 52%.

Schmerelson brought up the cost of the race in remarks he made after he was sworn in as president at LAUSD headquarters last month.  

鈥淩eally, it is our whole community that won,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ecause we learned to work together against the power of money. And when I say money, I mean $5 million.鈥�  

The contest between the two men had the potential to tilt the district鈥檚 school board away from a majority of union-backed members, and impact its handling of several   facing LAUSD, including restrictions on charter schools鈥� use of buildings, which Chang said he鈥檇 move to reverse if elected. 

 victory is part of a successful election season for many teachers  in Los Angeles 鈥� and Schmerelson has aligned himself with local unions on policies limiting space and resources for charter schools.

But in an interview Schmerelson said he supports the continued operation of high-quality charter schools in the district.

鈥淚 am going to support those charter schools that are doing an excellent job of educating the kids,鈥� said Schmerelson.

鈥淚 want to make sure that the charter schools that we have, are viable and working well,鈥� he added.

Financial dysfunction is plaguing many city school districts.

is the most concerning. The district鈥檚 current $300 million budget gap is set to triple next year, which isn鈥檛 surprising since enrollment dropped 10% over six years as the district added staff. Now, it won鈥檛 close schools, won鈥檛 reduce the workforce and is being told by the mayor to give in to union demands for big raises. How would the math work? The mayor wants the district to take out a short-term, high-interest loan. Oh, and the city and district still need to work out how to .

is a close second. Two years ago, leaders agreed to a costly labor agreement that they admitted would require major cuts. But then they didn鈥檛 make those cuts. Instead, leaders exhausted all reserves and are borrowing money they鈥檒l have to pay back by 2026. What鈥檚 the plan for the $100 million budget deficit? None yet. 

Why are financial crises suddenly common among large urban districts? Federal relief funds are part of the issue. Despite warnings that the money was temporary, many city districts used those one-time funds for salary raises and new staff hires.  

Some never had a plan for what would happen next. For example, when the federal relief funds ended, leaders in seemed surprised by a glaring $143 million hole in their budget forecast.

Of course, it鈥檚 never easy to cut labor. But avoidance makes it worse over time. In a recent hostage-like negotiation, the superintendent demanded $10 million from the city within 24 hours or the district would start issuing pink slips.

Falling birth rates are another factor. Over the long term, fewer kids means fewer dollars and a need for fewer schools. Closing schools is tough work, and many city districts especially aren鈥檛 up for it. In , schools are down to capacity. After pressing pause on its school closures, now has until Dec. 15 to come up with an alternative or face a potential .

Sometimes it鈥檚 basic financial mismanagement. For months, , inadvertently overpaid its staff, which, not surprisingly, has created a drain on the budget.

got behind on filing its financial reports and ended up with a state-imposed 鈥渃orrective action plan鈥� that involved repayment of $43 million. After the state imposed an external financial audit, the district has since .

In , where Las Vegas is located, 鈥渕iscalculations鈥� keep shifting the budget gap by tens of millions. And because New Orleans dragged its feet on surfacing a $20 million miscalculation of local tax revenue, each of its schools must cut some six or more staff midyear.

In St. Louis, the issue appears to be an unwarranted spending spree by a newly hired 鈥� and now fired 鈥� superintendent.

All these financial messes are leaving kids in the lurch. The dysfunction destabilizes the district, often leaving little time to make consequential decisions like staffing cuts or school closures. Employees are demoralized. Trust in the system erodes. Families with means pursue other options. Most of all, the financial upheaval takes all eyes off the district鈥檚 primary responsibility: student learning.

What is it about city school systems that predisposes them to such financial dysfunction? One obvious factor is that leaders are underprepared to manage complex financial operations that can involve upward of a billion dollars 鈥� or more 鈥� in public funds. Coming off a that outpaced inflation, few of today鈥檚 leaders have any experience with making hard budget tradeoffs. As forecasts change, leaders ignore the signs, stall or, in the case of , pass off major budget-cutting to a task force of 40 volunteers.  

Another reality is the intense, unbalanced political dynamics common in today鈥檚 urban centers. Powerful labor groups make unaffordable demands. Vocal parents resist program reductions or school closures. Some elected board members reverse planned cuts, imagining they鈥檙e defending constituents from the heartless bean counters in the district鈥檚 finance office. The good finance leaders flee the turmoil. Eventually, the district runs out of beans.

Strong district leadership should be an antidote. Leaders need to be , sharing options and explaining financial tradeoffs. They need to make hard choices, laser-focused on what鈥檚 best for students. They need to safeguard their schools’ financial integrity, ensuring that today鈥檚 decisions don鈥檛 erode the education of tomorrow鈥檚 students.

Missing in action are states. Typically, legislatures throw up their hands and bemoan local control. Many are wary of state takeover policies in part because of their of impacts on students.

But there are . Requiring multi-year budget forecasts and minimum levels of fiscal reserves are a start. States can then adopt policies that get triggered when districts overspend and deplete those reserves, each with the goal of helping the district get back on track. With some 80% to 90% of expenses going to personnel, states could mandate that labor contracts be reopened for renegotiation. They could appoint a financial auditor to communicate honestly about district finances. Also triggered could be a requirement that the board and leaders undergo finance training and hold more frequent meetings until budget gaps are addressed.

Standing by while finances erode further in these urban districts is unfair to the many students who depend on their leaders to manage the billions being deployed for their education. Continuing to look the other way will make things worse. City kids need the adults to figure this out.

The conventional wisdom is that shuttering aging buildings with few students makes economic sense. But the economics of school closures have been thorny in Chicago, where officials closed 50 of the city鈥檚 684 district schools in 2013. Eleven years later, savings have been less than expected, while the closings have proven disruptive to students and communities. They also carry economic consequences for the city and remain politically radioactive: The school board recently approved a until 2027. 

The Chicago experience is a cautionary tale for today鈥檚 policymakers contemplating school shutdowns.

When the 50 schools were shuttered, primarily in low-income communities serving students of color, city officials estimated the district would save $1 billion over 10 years: $560 million on building repairs and $43 million a year in salaries for principals and support staff.

But following accusations by parents, activists and local elected officials opposing the closings that the numbers were inflated, the district its savings estimates downward by 20%, to $438 million. Also that year, WBEZ, the Chicago National Public Radio affiliate, that the district was not accounting for $329 million it borrowed to prepare the schools that were to enroll the displaced students. That borrowing cost $25 million annually, starting in 2015 and continuing until 2045, for a total of $750 million.

Then, a 2023 by the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ found that the labor savings for employing fewer principals, assistant principals and school clerks amounted to about $25 million a year, $18 million less annually than projected. 

Beyond the shrinking cost savings, there鈥檚 evidence that the closures contributed to the decline of the low-income Black neighborhoods where the schools were located. The Sun-Times and WBEZ analysis looked at census data and found that Black neighborhoods that experienced a permanent school closure in 2013 subsequently lost population at three times the rate of other Chicago Black neighborhoods. Census tracts with a majority Black population that included closed schools lost 9.2% of their residents between 2013 and 2018, the news organizations found, compared with 3.2% in Black census tracts with schools that did not close.

Those statistics don鈥檛 prove that the school shutdowns accelerated declines in neighborhoods that were already depopulating. And charter schools in those communities may have encouraged some Black families to stay put, slowing the decline. But having a school near home is a draw for families, especially those with elementary school students. And in a struggling neighborhood, the closing of a school can be the last straw for families who are considering moving away. Notably, 49 of the 50 closed schools were elementary schools. 

Shuttering the schools didn鈥檛 improve academic outcomes for their students. A 2018 from the UChicago Consortium on School Research found that students from closed schools were absent and suspended at the same rates as peers in their new schools. But they had lower math scores for at least four years after transferring. And the Sun-Times and WBEZ analysis showed that they graduated from high school at slightly lower rates than students in schools with similar demographics that didn鈥檛 close. A 2023 of school closings in the San Antonio Independent School District yielded similar results: Attendance, grades and state test scores didn鈥檛 improve after students transferred to their new schools.

Nor did then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and district officials renovate and reopen the closed schools as other community assets, as they pledged to do by the end of 2014. A large-scale sale fell through, as did an effort to have local aldermen manage sales. As of May 2023, of the closed school buildings had been successfully reopened for other purposes. Many of the others have become graffiti-covered eyesores. 

By contrast, Kansas City Public Schools developed a community-focused approach to the 30 school buildings it closed in 2011. The district hired an urban planner with experience in community development, who held public meetings and tours before putting each building on the market. Each time a serious offer was made, more meetings were held. The district has sold 22 buildings, has one under contract, demolished five and is holding three for future use. 

School districts can’t ignore the inefficiencies of underenrolled schools, especially when they are faltering academically. But the aftermath of Chicago鈥檚 school closings a decade ago points to the importance of a clear-eyed approach that prioritizes public transparency and takes into account the financial, academic and community consequences of closings. It suggests the need to balance cost savings with preserving the vitality of neighborhoods and the need for resources to support struggling students wherever they attend school. 

Robert Brown and his wife moved to Newark after 10 years of living in Florida, where they faced challenges in getting special education services for their two sons who have autism.

Their children, Warren, 9, and Nathaniel, 6, are both nonverbal and require speech, applied behavior analysis, and occupational therapies. Nathaniel has a more severe disability, Brown said, and requires the same services as his older brother along with behavioral therapy and a classroom aide.

After enrolling his sons in Newark Public Schools in July using the Newark Enrolls application online, he thought they were all set.

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But on Sept. 3, Newark Public Schools鈥� first day of school, Brown took his sons to McKinley Elementary School, the school they were supposed to attend, only to be told McKinley had space for Warren, but not for Nathaniel. The younger boy has been forced to stay home ever since 鈥� missing the crucial first week of a school year as well as much-needed services that help with Nathaniel鈥檚 disability.

The Browns are not the only family whose return to school has been marked by confusion and disruption. Several other parents of children with disabilities told Chalkbeat Newark that on the first day of school, they were told their child did not have a school placement. Other parents said they were told their child was enrolled at a different school.

The issues families are grappling with this year speak to a growing need in the district where an increasing number of students require special education services. This school year, roughly half of Newark Public Schools鈥� nearly 40,000 students is made up of vulnerable students in need of additional support and resources. This fall, roughly 7,000 students need special education services and another 11,000 .

The district said it鈥檚 not experiencing a problem with enrollment and that those seeking a placement can visit the Newark Enrolls website or the school closest to their home for direct assistance and support, Paul Brubaker, Newark Public Schools communication director, said in a Sept. 6 email to Chalkbeat. Students who have completed the enrollment process and are placed at school receive the services and accommodations they are entitled to from their first day of attendance, Brubaker added.

But Brown said that鈥檚 not what his family has experienced.

After a plan to move to New York fell through, the family scrambled to secure an apartment in Newark over the summer. Brown said he enrolled his sons in the district by using the Newark Enrolls application. By early August, he had already sent the district his children鈥檚 Individualized Education Program, a written plan that outlines the services a student with a disability needs in school, along with a list of 10 schools he would prefer his children to attend.

鈥淲e鈥檙e going through the motions, but it鈥檚 frustrating, you know because I did everything early, I figured that, you know, that would have helped,鈥� Brown said. 鈥淚 know there鈥檚 an overcrowding problem, but you know, he needs to go somewhere. He can鈥檛 be out of school, this isn鈥檛 the 1700s.鈥�

Brown says he鈥檚 reached out to the district鈥檚 Board of Education and a special needs coordinator at the state鈥檚 department of education, which are in the process of finding a school for Nathaniel but the principal at McKinley told him no seats are available for students with disabilities across the city.

And the clock is ticking. Brown is set to begin work in a few weeks, while Nathaniel sits at home along with his sick grandmother who is cared for by Brown鈥檚 wife.

Nathaniel, who has severe autism, will run around the house and scream when he鈥檚 told not to do something, Brown said. The family goes to bed by 10:30 p.m. every night so Nathaniel can sleep through the night but often he wakes up around 3:30 a.m. full of energy. His son鈥檚 neurologist prescribed medication for Nathaniel but in the end, Brown said, his son needs the proper services to help him manage his disability.

Like Brown, Alyssa Drysdale was told on the first day of school that her kindergarten daughter Eva, who has an IEP, was not enrolled at the school she was supposed to attend: Quitman Street Elementary School where she had gone to pre-K last year.

Drysdale waited over an hour on the first day of classes in the school鈥檚 gym with her daughter Eva, who requires speech therapy and may need an aide this school year as she can be easily triggered in a classroom environment. Drysdale wasn鈥檛 told why she and other parents had to wait until she spoke with school staff who told her that Eva wasn鈥檛 enrolled in the school, Drysdale said.

The school鈥檚 principal and her staff were working to find a placement for Eva when Drysdale realized she needed to check her car. As she was walking out, she saw her car getting towed.

鈥淚 see my car in the back of a tow truck, and I had to pick up Eva, and she鈥檚 so heavy, and I鈥檓 literally chasing the tow truck down. Like, please, oh my God, can I have my car back now? I wasn鈥檛 expecting to take this long,鈥� Drysdale said.

When she went back to the school, Drysdale 鈥渏ust wanted to cry there, like I was so sad.鈥� She spoke with a caseworker who said to wait for a call from the district with a placement for Eva. In the meantime, Drysdale said, they offered a take-home packet so Eva could do school work at home.

Instead, Drysdale said she returned the next day to drop Eva off at the school.

鈥淚 do work overnight, but the only time I do get to rest is during school, so I ended up dropping her in the morning, but this situation was a little weird to me,鈥� Drysdale said.

The next day, a caseworker told Drysdale they would take Eva while the school figured out a permanent placement for her. But Drysdale isn鈥檛 sure if her daughter will move to another classroom or when her speech therapy, which Eva needs so she can learn to express herself better, will begin, Drysdale said.

鈥淪he can express her needs,鈥� Drysdale said, 鈥漛ut as far as being in depth, she wouldn鈥檛 be able to explain herself.鈥�

Newark students with disabilities face recurring problems

Brown鈥檚 and Drysdale鈥檚 enrollment issues parents of students with disabilities have faced in Newark. Students with disabilities also face greater learning challenges as they have been some of the from the COVID-19 pandemic, with from learning disruptions.

In 2019, the New Jersey Department of Education cited the district for related to education plans for students with disabilities.

In 2022, the with reporting in education plans, notifying parents of meetings, and missing meetings with parents and students with disabilities as part of responsibilities mandated under the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). The state ordered the district to take corrective action by November 2022.

This year鈥檚 enrollment problems are also affecting high school students. Tameerah Green鈥檚 son, Jaimir Velez, is a 10th grade student with an IEP, who last year, attended Eagle Academy located inside Weequahic High School. On Aug. 16, Green received a letter from the district confirming that her son鈥檚 district-provided transportation would arrive on the first day of school and drop him off at Eagle Academy.

But on Sept. 3, after her son was picked up by his bus and dropped off at Eagle Academy, Green received a call from Clark Thompson, the school鈥檚 child study team social worker, notifying her Jaimir was supposed to attend Malcolm X Shabazz High school, not Eagle. No one had told her about the school change prior to that morning.

Jaimir has a learning disability and needs a stable environment with familiar teachers to avoid sparking behavioral issues, Green said. The mother sent Jaimir to Eagle Academy the next day, on Sept. 4, but when he returned home, Jaimir said a teacher told him he wasn鈥檛 supposed to be at the school.

On the third day of school, Jaimir started to complain about headaches and stomach cramps, which Green feels is a result of not feeling welcomed at the school. Jaimir hasn鈥檛 been back to school since Sept. 4.

鈥淚 took him to the doctor today to make sure everything was fine but I know where it鈥檚 coming from,鈥� said Green on Monday.

Advocate Nadine Wright-Arbubakrr has a long history of working with Newark families to secure school services and, through her nonprofit Nassan鈥檚 Place, offers . But this is the first time she has heard about parents of students with disabilities facing enrollment issues during the first days of school.

鈥淗ow is it possible that these parents continue to deal with these problems every school year? It鈥檚 just not fair,鈥� said Wright-Arbubakrr, who founded Nassan鈥檚 Place more than 10 years ago to help families navigate the problems she once faced as a Newark parent of a student with autism.

With the second week of school underway, Brown and his family are hoping the district can find a school for Nathaniel soon. In the meantime, he鈥檚 looking at schools outside of the district, including , a private K-12 school that offers programs for students with disabilities at its Montclair and Union campuses.

But ultimately, he hopes Newark can provide his youngest son with a public school education, 鈥渂ecause that鈥檚 why we came here.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檓 going to start working in maybe a couple weeks, but I鈥檓 not going to be here, then everything, mostly, is going to be on my wife,鈥� Brown said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e already overwhelmed.鈥�

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Then, the growth machine stalled. California has long seen a large percentage of its residents , but international immigration and high birth rates more than made up for those losses. That formula is no longer working, and this year researcher Hans Johnson found that the number of births per 1,000 California residents was at its lowest level in more than a century. 

Within education, the declines were small at first. But then COVID-19 hit, and the state lost 420,000 public school students in four years. California鈥檚 pandemic-era enrollment declines were not just the largest numerically, the 6.7% drop was also the second-largest in percentage terms. 

There鈥檚 potentially more bad news in store for California school districts. According to the latest forecast from the federal government, the state is projected to lose another 1 million public school students by 2031. 

If a private-sector business has fewer customers, its revenue will decline proportionally. Public education revenues are broadly linked to enrollment, but the relationship is not as linear. 

There are three main sources of revenue for public schools 鈥� local, state and federal. Local funds, which in California make up about one-third of school district , come from property taxes and are not directly tied to student enrollments. Federal formula funds are linked to how many students a district serves, as well as how many of them are low-income or receive special education services. But aid from Washington is so diffuse and such a small part of district budgets that it’s not enough to move the needle, at least in the short run. 

That leaves state funds as the primary area where serving fewer students will affect a district鈥檚 budget. Theoretically, state policymakers could decide to spend the same amount of money even if schools enroll fewer kids. That could actually raise per-pupil revenues in districts, but only if they are all losing students equally. 

But enrollment declines have not been universal across or within states. In California, two-thirds of districts suffered an enrollment decline during the pandemic, but that means one-third actually gained students. The biggest loser, in numeric terms, was Los Angeles, which lost 67,000 students (14%) over four years. Other notable losers include Long Beach (down 10%), San Jose (down 15%) and Cupertino (down 22%). 

Where the rubber will really hit the road is in schools with declining enrollments situated within districts that are shrinking overall. Most districts allocate money to schools according to staffing ratios, so a school would get less staff if it served fewer students. 

It turns out that California has a lot of schools with large enrollment declines. When 社区黑料’s Linda Jacobson worked with Brookings Institution researchers to run the numbers, they found over 1,400 schools in California that had suffered at least a 20% enrollment decline. Those were particularly concentrated along the Pacific coast, and they are the ones most at risk.

It simply costs more per pupil for districts to offer the same level of services at schools that are partially empty. And, as Marguerite Roza and Ash Dhamani cautioned recently in a for EdSource, this has consequences for the entire district. When districts try to prop up too many underenrolled schools, they eventually have to cut back on 鈥渕usic, electives, AP courses, athletics and other supports鈥� across all their schools. 

To put it in concrete terms, the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University has compiled school-level spending information , and it lets users sort schools across a variety of categories. When I narrowed the search to California elementary schools, almost all the highest-cost schools were small, and likely underenrolled. Meanwhile, almost all of the biggest schools fell below the statewide average in per-pupil spending. 

California school districts received $18 billion in one-time , and that money has allowed districts to operate beyond their means temporarily. But the money expires at the end of September, and then leaders will have to make some painful decisions to more closely align their budgets with the number of students they serve. 

The views expressed here are those of the author. 

COLUMBUS, OHIO 鈥撯�� The dire problems facing Columbus City Schools can be illustrated by comparing two buildings: Como Elementary School and Hamilton STEM Academy. Built as identical schools in 1954, they sit less than 2 miles apart, about 4 miles north of downtown.

Como has never undergone a significant renovation. Original floor tiles that an official said contain asbestos still cover a majority of the school, many of its plexiglass windows are no longer translucent and wires snake through the hallways, crudely affixed to the top of cinder-block walls.

While the building has been retrofitted with air conditioning and a new playground, 鈥淲e can鈥檛 do everything,鈥� admits T. Alex Trevino, the district鈥檚 director of capital improvements. In addition to its obvious physical shortcomings, the school, with a capacity of 400 students, has only 243.

Meanwhile, a $3.5 million renovation last year has transformed Hamilton’s 47,000-square-foot building, adding flooring that cuts down on noise, new windows and furniture, and walls full of cubbies with doors that make classrooms look neater. Freshly painted hallways are dotted with inspirational sayings. 鈥淭he kids are excited about the building. It鈥檚 changed the school culture,鈥� says principal Christopher Brady. Still, Hamilton is only two-thirds occupied, with just under 400 students in a building with a capacity of 575.

Six schools, including Hamilton, have undergone extensive renovations, with two more planned this summer. But in a district with 113 schools 鈥� most of them built before 1975 鈥� the buildings are deteriorating faster than the city can fix them. The district spends some $544,000 on facilities and maintenance for each school every year, $86,000 more than the national average.

Like nearly every urban school district in the country, Columbus has significantly fewer students than it did just six years ago. At its peak in the 1970s, the district educated 110,000 students. By 2017, that figure had shrunk to 50,000. Today, the district has an enrollment of about 45,400.

Some of those students transferred to charter or private schools. An expansion of a state program has let more families use public dollars to pay for tuition. While 26,400 people applied for vouchers last school year, that to 91,100 in the current school year.

At the same time, the district’s schools were rated the worst in central Ohio. Columbus鈥檚 overall rating was a 2 on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, ranking it last among 49 districts in Franklin County.

It’s clear that Columbus City Schools is facing challenges that defy easy solutions. But the course of action officials have settled on 鈥� closing schools and redrawing attendance boundaries 鈥� has been tried twice before, and failed. 

Earlier this year 鈥� after voters approved a $100 million levy to fend off teacher layoffs and fund infrastructure improvements and renovations as federal COVID funds run out 鈥� the district hired a consultant for $500,000 to assess its buildings. It also created a 22-person task force to consider which schools to shutter.

But there’s no guarantee this solution will work. Closing schools is the least popular action a district can take, and this marks the third time since 2016 that Columbus has tried to overhaul its operations. Both previous efforts were stymied, and a list of 20 possible school closures has already generated criticism from residents and union members.

鈥淚鈥檝e been on a school closing committee,鈥� says Douglas Harris, the Schlieder Foundation Chair in Public Education at Tulane University. 鈥淪ometimes it can be in the best interest of the district, but it鈥檚 the last thing anybody ever wants to do.鈥�

No one knows the reality of the situation better than Jim Negron. In 2018, he led the committee that proposed closing schools and redrawing attendance zones 鈥� a plan that was rejected by the Board of Education. The president of CK Construction is co-chairing this year鈥檚 task force as well, and he remains optimistic these decisions will set the district up for success for the next 20 years.

鈥淭his is really important work. There鈥檚 something special happening in Columbus,鈥� he says.

There is a reason for Negron鈥檚 optimism. Columbus is the fastest-growing city in the country, according to a new study by the Bank of America Institute, and more people are likely coming. Intel is planning a $20 billion manufacturing plant in New Albany, about 15 miles from downtown. Honda and LG Energy Solution are teaming up to create a plant about 45 minutes southwest of the city to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles. New zoning rules will allow about to be built in Columbus.

All this makes some, including teachers union president John Coneglio, question why the district isn鈥檛 looking to spruce up more of its schools instead of closing them. 鈥淲e鈥檙e dismantling schools without a plan to grow the district,” he says.

He worries that unused buildings might be turned into parochial or charter schools, which would siphon off more students from the district. Already, parents are getting texts from charter schools with offers to help fill out their paperwork, he says. Will the city 鈥渓eave neighborhoods empty and ripe for charters to take our kids?鈥� he asks. 

Coneglio, who was originally on the task force but resigned, says the district鈥檚 efforts have a 鈥減redetermined outcome, and their goal is to guide you to that outcome.鈥�

When the task force revealed at a May 7 meeting the 20 schools that might be closed, so many union officials and city residents attended that the district had to create an overflow room so everyone could watch the proceedings, according to a in The Columbus Dispatch.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot more work to be done here,鈥� board President Christina Vera said at the meeting. 鈥淭his is not going to be an easy lift.鈥� 

Afterward, Superintendent Angela Chapman tried to head off criticism when she answered a question about upset parents by saying: 鈥淚 would say 鈥� to take a deep breath. These are initial recommendations that have been submitted to begin the conversation about where we go from here. 鈥� These are not the final recommendations.鈥�

The task force is slated to send a final list to the seven-member Board of Education in June. Any changes would take effect in fall 2025.

Even before the task force made its initial recommendations, co-chair Al Edmondson admitted that informal lobbying had begun. 鈥淧eople call and say, 鈥楧on鈥檛 close my school down. My mom went there, I went there.鈥� But these buildings are old. Something needs to happen.鈥�

Harris says he has found that closing schools works best when a district considers the effect on the community and not just how much money can be saved. He urges leaders to 鈥渇ind ways to keep teams together,鈥� because bonds among families, teachers and principals are hard to re-create. 

A conducted by Harris and two colleagues found that closing the lowest-performing elementary schools can improve student achievement, but not if children are placed in worse schools.

While Harris admits the disruption of changing schools can impair learning, this is offset by transferring to a better school, he says. And future cohorts of students, such as kindergartners, would attend the better school without disruption.

But this 鈥渋s contingent on closing the lowest-performing schools 鈥� which doesn鈥檛 often happen,鈥� he adds.

Columbus鈥檚 board policy calls for the task force to consider 14 factors in deciding which schools to close; the first on that list is teaching and curriculum. Other items include the age and condition of the building, the number of students who will need to be relocated and enrollment trends. Task force members are also to make sure closures don鈥檛 disproportionately affect one section of the city.

Before the meeting, Negron said he had already heard from a lot of residents, and he expects 鈥� and hopes 鈥� to hear from more before the final recommendation next month. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of passion around the task at hand. That鈥檚 not unexpected. I expect to hear more, and I welcome that.鈥�

Correction: Students from Columbus City Schools have transferred to both charter and private schools.

Answer: When it $1.3 billion. 

This macabre joke is all-too real for San Francisco Unified, where this spring a state oversight panel took control of all budget decisions until the district balances its spending. After reviewing the district’s budget, the that the locally elected school board no longer has full authority over, 鈥渁ny action that is determined to be inconsistent with the ability of [the district] to meet its obligations for the current or subsequent fiscal year.鈥� 

According to an independent fiscal , the district has a number of budgetary problems: 

• It paid for employee positions using one-time federal relief funds and will need to lay them off or find other revenues or savings;
• It has not adjusted student enrollment projections to account for continued declines;
• It does not track monthly attendance data and, as a result, overstates average daily attendance in projecting future revenues; and
• Its budget office is understaffed, leading to inadequate control over its  and problems tracking employee overtime costs. 

Some parts of this story make San Francisco unique. For example, it spent in a failed effort to fix its payroll processing system. And, to avert a strike last fall, the district agreed to large salary increases 鈥� over two years for teachers and for service workers. 

California is also unusual in that it has a powerful oversight agency. The Department of Education鈥檚 Fiscal Crisis Team reviews district budgets to ensure they are financially solvent, and it can take over budgeting decisions if the need arises. 

Through these reviews, San Francisco was first put on 鈥渜ualified鈥� notice in December, which shifted to 鈥渘egative鈥� in May. The auditor in charge of San Francisco鈥檚 review that the district now spends more money than it brings in, and with that will come added scrutiny over all its budgetary decisions until the district can demonstrate that its books are in order.

That鈥檚 a different and more active oversight role than exists in many states. 

Still, in many ways, San Francisco is a canary in the coal mine for much of the country. There are a few common factors to look out for: 

Does the district have underenrolled schools? 

San Francisco has 4,000 fewer students than it did a decade ago and it will lose another 4,600 by 2032. In those same projections, the district leadership noted that nearly all schools in all grades had unfilled seats.  

And yet, despite the enrollment declines, the district has not closed schools, and the city’s teachers union has for that moratorium to continue. But by delaying those hard decisions, the district has spread itself thin, because it鈥檚 harder to provide a full range of services at severely underenrolled schools. 

California schools have suffered bigger enrollment declines than other parts of the country 鈥� and those are projected to get worse in the coming years. Still, more than two-thirds of public school districts nationwide have fewer students than they did pre-pandemic. 

Are the district’s staffing ratios financially sustainable?

San Francisco actually looks better on this metric than many other parts of the country. While three-quarters of districts nationwide have lowered their student-to-teacher ratios over the last few years, San Francisco has not. 

The district has also kept its total staffing levels in check. Unlike many others, it did not hire a host of new administrators, paraprofessionals, school counselors or other support staff. 

However, that鈥檚 not for lack of trying. In December, one of the first steps the San Francisco school board took to reduce its long-term budget deficit was to . This month, the district agreed to impose an immediate freeze on new hiring. 

Media last fall decried San Francisco’s teacher shortages and the number of vacant positions the district had. But with a stroke of a pen those “vacant” positions went away once the district realized it could not afford to hire more people.

In fact, San Francisco’s actions are what make it such an important warning for other district leaders across the country. Many districts haven鈥檛 faced the same external pressures that San Francisco has, and yet, too many places are overstaffed and underenrolled. That combination could make for painful budget discussions in the coming years. 

Public school enrollment rose steadily throughout the first two decades of the 2000s.

The National Center for Education Statistics was projecting public school enrollments to continue to grow, although its future projections were becoming less optimistic, thanks to falling immigration and birth rates. 

When COVID-19 hit, enrollments took an immediate dive, and the center lowered its forecast. It now projected a short-term bounceback followed by a longer-term decline.

The immediate, sharp rebound didn’t happen. The center is now projecting much lower enrollments for the rest of the decade. 

According to the center’s most recent data, public schools served 1.2 million fewer students in 2022-23 than they did in the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The losses were widespread, with 37 states and two-thirds of school districts suffering a decline. California was the biggest loser in numeric terms, with 420,000 fewer public school students (a 6.7% decline), while Oregon suffered the biggest decline in percentage terms (9.4%). 

What caused these trends? As Stanford University researcher Thomas Dee has , the COVID-era enrollment declines were due to a combination of factors 鈥� a rise in homeschooling, a shift to private schools, fewer school-age children and some students who simply went missing from the data. 

But that鈥檚 the past. A separate division of the center is in charge of making forward-looking projections, and it has more grim news: It that public schools, including public charter schools, will lose an additional 2.4 million students (4.9%) by 2031.

Those projections are a mix of historical enrollment patterns and demographic assumptions, and it鈥檚 possible they will be too pessimistic, especially given the uncertainty of the last few years. For example, homeschooling numbers surged in the early years of COVID but have started to in most places. Similarly, took a dramatic nosedive in 2020 but has rebounded since then. 

Birth rates, however, are a major driver of student enrollment trends, and they have been in a decline. Birth rates also bounced around during COVID, but in a piece for , Melissa Kearney and Phillip Levine found that the trajectory is once again downward. To put it in concrete terms, they point to data showing that there were almost 600,000 fewer births in 2019 than in 2007. That means 600,000 fewer kindergartners showing up to schoolhouse doors next fall.  

The enrollment changes are not spread evenly across the country. Thirteen states 鈥� including Florida, North Dakota and Idaho 鈥� are to gain students by the end of the decade. But that means the rest of the country should brace for fewer students. Seven states 鈥� Hawaii, California, New Mexico, New York, West Virginia, Mississippi and Oregon 鈥� are all projected to suffer double-digit declines in addition to any losses they鈥檝e already seen. California alone is projected to lose nearly 1 million public school students by 2031.

In general, districts receive money based on how many students they serve, so shrinking communities should expect smaller school budgets going forward. It鈥檚 not a 1:1 relationship because most districts will still be able to count on local funds, which are typically not tied to student enrollment, as most state funds are. That protects about 45% of school district for the average district. Similarly, states have a variety of that offer at least temporary financial protection for districts with declining enrollment.  

Still, those districts will eventually have to get by with lower revenues. That鈥檚 a hard transition to make, especially as they shoulder growing pension costs plus fixed expenses like bond or facilities payments. 

The one-time federal relief funds gave a temporary lifeline to districts that were operating beyond their means, and it allowed schools across the country to reduce their student:teacher ratios. But when the money expires later this year, districts will have to consider options for downsizing their budgets, whether that means closing underenrolled schools, laying off staff to get back to their pre-pandemic levels or promising programs that are only just beginning to show results. 

In other words, districts with the steepest enrollment declines won鈥檛 be able to escape the mathematical pressures that will come with serving fewer students. Further enrollment declines are coming in most parts of the country, and districts must be prepared to navigate those headwinds. 

Overall college enrollment surged by 2.1 percent in fall 2023 compared to last year鈥檚 decrease of 0.9 percent, according to the .

But freshmen enrollment for this fall declined by 3.6 percent, particularly among 18- to 20-year-olds in four-year institutions 鈥� reversing last year鈥檚 promising 4.6 percent increase. Instead, community colleges led enrollment gains, particularly among freshmen over 21.

The enrollment increase among all freshmen at community colleges signal students鈥� growing interest in programs such as healthcare and construction offering short-term commitments that lead to direct employment connections, the report found.

Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, said in a statement the freshmen decline is a 鈥渢roubling sign鈥� for four-year institutions as young students opt out.

鈥淭his disparity in age aligns with the disparity in the kind of schools and the types of programs students are now choosing,鈥� Shapiro told 社区黑料.

Here are four key takeaways from the report:

1. Young students ages 18 to 20 led freshmen enrollment declines.

Freshmen enrollment, particularly in the 18 to 20 age group, declined by 5.2 percent despite last year鈥檚 4.5 percent increase.

However, freshmen in the 21 to 24, 25 to 29 and over 30 age groups increased by 14.3 percent, 17.4 percent and 24.4 percent respectively.

The freshmen enrollment trend was not expected as more students applied to college for the 2023-24 academic year than last year, reported.

Shapiro said the age disparity stems from young students鈥� reluctance to choose traditional four-year institutions 鈥� opting instead for community colleges and certificate programs.

鈥淭his is something that should not be news to anyone at any four-year institution,鈥� Shapiro said.

鈥淚f you鈥檙e less confident the job you get, even after earning a degree, is going to pay you significantly more than what you could make right now, it makes sense why young students would focus on short-term programs that have more direct connections to the workforce,鈥� he added.

Kevin Carey, vice president of education policy for , told the strong job market has exacerbated difficulties for four-year institutions to recruit high school graduates.

鈥淎 lot of four-year institutions are competing with the job market,鈥� Carey said. 鈥淪ome of those shorter-term degrees could represent an attempt to compromise with it.鈥�

2. Community colleges led undergraduate enrollment growth.

Undergraduate enrollment gains particularly come from community colleges 鈥� accounting for nearly 59% of overall growth.

Community college enrollment also increased by 4.4 percent compared to last year鈥檚 0.1 percent decline.

This growth suggests community colleges are starting to recover after taking a hit during the pandemic, the report found.

Shapiro said this aligns with the age disparities seen in freshmen enrollment as older students are more likely to attend community college over four-year institutions.

鈥淐ommunity colleges have only now started to improve,鈥� Shapiro said. 鈥淭o me, that signals students are looking for shorter programs, shorter commitments of time and more direct employment linkages.鈥�

Thomas Brock, director of the , told shifting attitudes toward four-year institutions have had indirect benefits for community colleges.

鈥淲hether it鈥檚 around affordability, debt, preparing for the job market, I think perhaps in some ways the negative press has been a little more directed toward the four-year sector,鈥� Brock said.

3. White student enrollment declined as Black, Latino and Asian students grew.

Black, Latino and Asian students lead overall undergraduate enrollment growth 鈥� increasing by 2.1 percent, 4.2 percent and 4 percent respectively.

White students declined by 0.9 percent, a continuation of last year鈥檚 4.8 percent drop, but Shapiro said this is in part due to the ending race-conscious admissions.

鈥淧art of the apparent decline we see in white students is because they鈥檙e not revealing their race,鈥� Shapiro said.

He added how these demographic shifts trickle down to , with less white students graduating compared to their Black, Latino and Asian peers.

4. Male student enrollment grew at nearly twice the rate of female students.

Undergraduate male enrollment increased by 2.2 percent compared to female enrollment that increased by 1.2 percent. 

The gender disparity continues the greater impact the pandemic had on women the past two years, the report found.

Shapiro said this is in part due to job market growth in careers like construction and manufacturing that historically favor men.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a small difference, but it鈥檚 been steady,鈥� Shapiro said.

The reported late last month there was a 78% increase in multilingual students for the 2023-24 academic year compared to the last two years.

鈥淔rom 2020 to 2023, the District has witnessed a staggering 78% surge in the Multilingual Learner population,鈥� according to a press release.

District spokeswoman Nancy Deering told 社区黑料 the majority of new multilingual students come from Spanish speaking countries.

District officials would not say if the influx of multilingual students come from migrant families, but immigration cases have increased in the . 

And reported in the last year it has doubled the number of families they have helped, with about half migrating from Ecuador, Haiti, Mexico and Chile.  

In the 2022-23 academic year, there were more than , with 9,000 multilingual students and 6,000 鈥� about 24% and 15% respectively.

With a 78% surge, the previous 9,000 multilingual students comes to more than 16,000 for the 2023-24 academic year, with Latino students comprising the majority of the district’s enrollment. 

In the 2022-23 academic year, there were nearly 23,000 Latino students, about 55% of the student population 鈥� compared to 36% of Black students and 7% of white students, according to the .

Newark superintendent Roger Le贸n told 社区黑料 the district hired close to 1,000 teachers in the past two academic years but currently has 80 vacancies mostly for multilingual and special needs teachers. 

English Language Learners

Le贸n said educators must be certified to teach multilingual students, slowing down the hiring process.

To ease these staffing shortages, Le贸n said the district has created incentives for current teachers to get the certification.

鈥淲e have a pool of staff members that are in route to get the endorsement and once they’re done that’ll be how we solve our problem,鈥� said Le贸n.

Neither Le贸n nor Deering would elaborate on what the incentives were. 

The district also held its in August for more than 250 teachers to help English language learners pass an English proficiency test and transition out of needing multilingual services.

Special Education

One parent said staffing issues in the district has prevented her two high school children with special needs from fully thriving, oftentimes needing occupational therapy among other services that aren鈥檛 always available.

鈥淚 just see the district harboring kids on the spectrum from high functioning to low functioning all in the same classroom which is not a good idea,鈥� she told 社区黑料 anonymously to protect the identity of her children. 鈥淢y kids have a different level of learning and they need to be with that particular group.鈥�

Another parent added how staffing problems prevented her 6th grade son from attending a specialized district school. 

鈥淚t鈥檚 been issue after issue after issue,鈥� she told 社区黑料 anonymously to protect the identity of her son. 鈥淓very single thing, all the support I鈥檝e been advocating for, has been a fight.鈥�

Le贸n believes the district wouldn鈥檛 have to worry about finding special education teachers if Newark鈥檚 charter schools didn鈥檛 contribute to the problem.

鈥淪tudents that have an IEP are not afforded an opportunity to have an education in Newark charter schools because they get kicked out,鈥� said Le贸n. 鈥淪o if we want to help solve this problem, the charter schools need to get it together.鈥�

From 2011 to 2019, Black enrollment declined at twice the rate (26%) of the overall decrease at two-year colleges (13%), a drop of almost 300,000 students. In 2020, Black enrollment plunged by another 100,000, a return to the same levels as 20 years ago. This threatens 鈥渄ecades of gains in Black economic opportunity through college enrollment,鈥� according to the , prepared for the , a coalition of 26 higher education executives, academics and national leaders assembled in response to this alarming trend. 

Not only does this promote inequitable opportunity for Black learners; it also comes at significant economic cost to Black families and the nation. Brookings Institution data suggest that downward mobility affects 鈥� a racial wealth gap that McKinsey & Co. could 鈥渃ost the U.S. economy between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion between 2019 and 2028 鈥� 4% to 6% of the projected [gross domestic product] in 2028.鈥�

Ensuring Black learner success is not solely about economics. It requires a commitment to redesigning structures and systems that many Black Americans encounter as barriers to economic and social mobility. 

In recent years, community colleges have worked to introduce comprehensive supports inside and outside the classroom that help individual students access certificates, degrees and employment. They changed placement-test policies and accelerated transitions into college-level math and English courses. They implemented broad changes to strengthen advising, providing ongoing individual academic and nonacademic counseling when students need it, and created more agile financial aid policies, including emergency assistance. Additionally, community colleges have found resources for food banks and assistance to help students find housing and, in some cases, pay their rent, as poverty disproportionately impacts Black communities. In fact, according to a from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, “an alarming 70% of Black students experienced food or housing insecurity or homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

However, this work needs to be coupled with a new strategy to bolster access for Black learners, many of whom no longer see higher education as a viable pathway. The strategy must begin by recognizing the fact that many Black college students perceive that they are not welcome. A recent found that Black students 鈥渁re not only more likely to say they frequently or occasionally feel discriminated against, but also to say they feel disrespected and physically or psychologically unsafe.”

To reach and support them, colleges must understand students鈥� experiences and the strengths and challenges of their local communities; present learning content that is relevant to their lives and cultural backgrounds; encourage students to take on inquiry-based assignments and projects that reflect their interests; and eliminate barriers to their success. This requires a student-centered approach to ensure that Black learners have what they need to enter and succeed in college.

This means that schools must:

• Transform existing notions of access from open doors that students can enter to lifelong career-matching institutions for students and the communities they serve. That means looking beyond traditional recruitment strategies and providing working adults who never previously considered higher education with credentialing and degree programs that help them secure living-wage jobs. It also means partnering with high schools to bridge the gap for students who are disconnected and disengaged.
  
• Redesign dual enrollment and other college-in-high-school programs to more effectively reach Black learners. Programs such as dual enrollment, early college and joint career and technical education are increasingly important pathways. Nearly 1 in 5 community college students are enrolled through programs, which have significant potential to improve academic success. But racial inequities limit the availability of these programs to students of color and those from low-income families. The reports that, 鈥淸F]our out of every five school districts have racial equity gaps in access” to dual enrollment.

• Eliminate financial barriers by creating real transparency about the cost of college and strengthen policies that can help Black learners. As the ,鈥渢he vast majority 鈥� 80% 鈥� of Black Americans believe that college is unaffordable.鈥� This is not surprising given that Black families have fewer assets to pay for college and, as a result, incur significantly more student loan debt than their white or Latino peers. This is true even at the community college level. Only one-third of Black students are able to earn an associate degree without incurring debt. One promising pathway would be to expand College Promise programs, which can have on Black enrollment.
  
• Ensure that Black students have multiple pathways to attaining a credential that leads to upwardly mobile careers 鈥� and are not steered into , as research suggests happens at many community colleges.

It is time for colleges, states and the nation to commit to providing Black students with postsecondary opportunities that lead to life-sustaining jobs and economically mobile careers, and support the vitality of the communities where these students and families live. The alternative is far too costly for Black Americans and the nation.

Sheikh experienced several hurdles, from losing community college credits to inconsistent academic advising, after transferring twice during the pandemic.

鈥淲hen COVID hit, a lot of the resources I needed were cut off,鈥� Sheikh told 社区黑料. 鈥淚t was a bit of a struggle because I didn’t know the system very well, plus my parents never went to school here, so I was lost figuring out this process.鈥�

As a South Asian immigrant woman, Sheikh鈥檚 experience speaks to the thousands of transfer students from marginalized communities who鈥檝e had a difficult time achieving their dream to earn a four-year degree.

According to a new report from the , college transfer enrollment declined by 7.5 percentage points in fall 2022 and 14.5 percentage points since fall 2020 鈥� the equivalent of 37,600 and 78,500 students respectively.

The steepest transfer enrollment drops were observed among lower income students who declined by 10.8 percentage points since fall 2019 鈥� the equivalent of 225,200 students.

There was also a disparate enrollment drop for female transfer students compared to their male counterparts with a decline of 3.5 and 0.7 percentage points respectively in fall 2022 鈥� adding to an overall decline of 9.2 and 3.9 percentage points since fall 2020.

In addition, transfer enrollment fell significantly for Asian, White and Native American students by 8, 6.1 and 3.5 percentage points respectively in fall 2022 鈥� adding to an overall drop of 14.8, 12.2 and 7.8 percentage points since fall 2020.

鈥淓ven before the pandemic, that path from community colleges to four-year institutions was riddled with complexities and barriers that would hamstring even the most persistent students,鈥� director Tania LaViolet told 社区黑料.

鈥淪o when you get the extreme hardships from the last few years and an experience that already isn鈥檛 built with you in mind, those things compound鈥nd reflect the data we鈥檙e seeing.鈥�

LaViolet said the inequities for lower income students to attend four-year universities needs more attention from policymakers and state leaders. 

鈥淲e know it isn’t a matter of if the talent is out there,鈥� LaViolet said. 鈥淪o how can we design better practices that serve the needs of lower income transfers? There are institutions out there who have done it, but the data shows it鈥檚 not happening at scale.鈥�

LaViolet also said the disparities in female transfer enrollment doesn鈥檛 surprise her.

鈥淓specially for those who are parenting students, who have families to care for and who have jobs, those real life circumstances combined with a challenging educational environment make it difficult for women to realize their educational goals,鈥� LaViolet said.

Jeff Gold, the associate vice chancellor at the , agreed with LaViolet.

鈥淲hen a pandemic hits, there’s existential challenges that come first and foremost if you’re caring for a family member, if you’re sick yourself or if you’ve got to go back to work,鈥� Gold told 社区黑料. 鈥淏ut there’s certainly one that鈥檚 clear 鈥� child rearing responsibilities are disproportionately on the female side.鈥�

Gold also said it鈥檚 troubling how transfer enrollment drops are not shared equally by students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.

鈥淲e have to remember that we’re still living in incredibly tumultuous times, so there’s a context behind these numbers and they’re not out of the blue,鈥� Gold told 社区黑料. 鈥淪o the fact that the drops for our most historically marginalized students are much larger than our other students is incredibly troubling.鈥�

John Fink, senior research associate at the , pointed out how transfer enrollment drops may 鈥渂e slowing, but are still moving in the wrong direction.鈥�

Looking forward, Fink believes these enrollment drops have implications for four-year universities that rely on transfer students as a core part of their enrollment strategy.

鈥淔our-year institutions have really taken transfer students for granted,鈥� Fink told 社区黑料. 鈥淭his really should be a wake up call for them to rethink and focus on how they can better partner with their community colleges.鈥�

A decade after Queen Lydia Liliuokalani Elementary School closed its doors because of low enrollment, the ripple effects the closure had on the greater Kaimuki neighborhood can still be felt by longtime residents.

The 99-year-old school served as a meeting place for the Kaimuki Neighborhood Board, which no longer has a regular meeting site. It hosted annual public celebrations of Queen Liliuokalani鈥檚 birthday. Nearby residents used the basketball courts during off hours.

鈥淚鈥檓 still upset about it,鈥� said Lyle Bullock, a former neighborhood board member whose daughter was attending the school when it closed. 鈥淣ot for me personally, but for the community.鈥�

It鈥檚 been years since the state has taken steps to shutter a school, but difficult decisions like the one made in Kaimuki may lie ahead for other communities if public school enrollment continues to decline.

If current projections hold true, by the 2027-28 school year Hawaii will have fewer students enrolled in state-run public schools than at any point since 1962.

It鈥檚 a startling data point that could have big repercussions for public education in a state where many smaller and rural schools are already struggling to keep programs afloat.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a significant concern,鈥� Bruce Voss, chair of the state Board of Education said of the declines, adding that at this time the BOE is not planning or considering any closures. 

鈥淲e have a lot on our plate right now to remediate the learning loss caused by the pandemic,鈥� Voss said. 鈥淭hat is our primary focus now.鈥�

But some education experts say now is the time to start having hard conversations about what a shrinking student population might mean and to use federal Covid-19 relief funds to better prepare for the future.

Schools nationwide with declining enrollment are going to face very serious fiscal pressure to reduce staffing and close under-enrolled schools, said Thomas Dee, a professor at Stanford University who has been studying public school enrollment changes during the pandemic.

鈥淚 think so many of us focus on this propitious moment where many states have access to these extra funds from the federal government, because it at least gives states and districts some fiscal capacity to navigate this,鈥� Dee said.

Pandemic Made Things Worse 

Enrollment in DOE schools had been slowly but steadily declining in Hawaii before the pandemic, driven by out-migration, fewer births, and the growing popularity of public charter schools. Hawaii also has one of the highest rates of private school enrollment in the nation. 

Covid-19 significantly accelerated the declines.

Nationally and in Hawaii many parents didn鈥檛 enroll their children in kindergarten, a particularly difficult age to engage remotely. But there wasn鈥檛 a large surge in enrollment in first grade students during the second year of the pandemic, Dee said.

鈥淚t suggests to me enrollment losses will be enduring,鈥� Dee said.

Enrollment in Hawaii declined roughly 6.8% in the last five years and is currently projected by the DOE to drop another 5.4% by 2027-28.

鈥淎 decline of that magnitude is substantial,鈥� Dee said.

Declining enrollment is a concern nationwide 鈥� and Dee says some districts in other states are already grappling with school closures 鈥� but it鈥檚 particularly worrisome for small schools in Hawaii. The majority of state education funding in Hawaii is allocated using what鈥檚 known as a weighted student formula, a per-student figure that takes into account student needs like special education services.

The formula was designed so that school funding would be more equitable across schools and follow students, said Brian Hallett, assistant superintendent in the DOE鈥檚 office of fiscal services. That means schools already anticipate a certain degree of fluctuation each year based on enrollment changes.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not entirely a problem for schools to have reduced funding, it鈥檚 just when it becomes of such a magnitude that they can鈥檛 do what they need to do,鈥� Hallett said.

The enrollment losses are not equally spread across the state. Some schools, like Kahului Elementary school on Maui and Haleiwa Elementary on Oahu are predicted to lose 20% of their students between now and 2027-28. A few schools are expected to experience growth, including Barbers Point Elementary on Oahu, which is slated to increase enrollment by 11%.

The DOE produces six-year enrollment projects every year to help schools engage in short and long-term planning. Unexpected and significant changes to enrollment projections in the short term 鈥� something schools impacted by the Red Hill fuel contamination experienced last year 鈥� is much more disruptive to school operations than slow and predictable long term changes, Hallett said.

Osa Tui Jr., president of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, was a registrar at McKinley High School during a time when the student body declined by about 16%. The school cut its French program and eliminated some teacher positions as a result of financial cuts, but because the school still has a population of more than 1,600 students the losses were manageable. It鈥檚 smaller and mid-sized schools that struggle the most with funding cuts. 

The state鈥檚 weighted student formula has mostly been successful, Voss of the BOE said. But there needs to be another funding mechanism to support small rural schools so that they have the funding to provide students the education they deserve. The DOE is requesting additional funds this year from the Legislature for the funding formula to provide some additional support. 

Making sure smaller schools have sufficient staff and a range of classes is critical to making sure the schools are attractive to parents, Voss said. Otherwise the enrollment declines being a self-fulfilling prophesy. 

Hard Choices Ahead

Adding to the enrollment problem is the fact that the state is dotted with aging school buildings and a maintenance backlog that will take years to address. As buildings age at schools with small enrollments, the financial arguments for keeping them open are likely to become more fraught.

鈥淲e鈥檝e got more need than we have money and resources,鈥� DOE Assistant Superintendent Curt Otaguro told lawmakers at a legislative budget briefing earlier this month, warning them that tough decisions may be needed down the line about where resources are allocated as school buildings 鈥� and the state鈥檚 population 鈥� continue to age.

But a lot can happen in five years to impact enrollment projections, counters Brian Hallett, assistant superintendent in the DOE鈥檚 Office of Fiscal Services. He says it鈥檚 too soon to start talking about things like school closures when the school system is still emerging from the disruptions of the pandemic.

Hallett said he鈥檚 cautiously optimistic that state and county efforts to regulate vacation rentals and address a lack of affordable housing will help mitigate enrollment declines in the future.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of effort to work against these projections, where they鈥檙e headed, and address the migration issue,鈥� Hallett said.

Making decisions today based on what might happen in six years can also cause all sorts of problems, he said.

A decade ago, the DOE was considering closing several schools in Hawaii Kai because of low enrollment. None of those schools currently have enrollment problems, Hallett said, using the schools as an example of the challenge of making decisions based on what鈥檚 happening at one point in time.

鈥淲e have to take a longer-term view of schools,鈥� Hallett said. 鈥淐losing one of those schools in the time where it seemed appropriate would have painted ourselves into a corner and created a future problem.鈥�

The best thing lawmakers can do about the projected declines is not overreact, Hallett said.

If and when school closures should be considered again by the Hawaii BOE, Voss says it鈥檚 important for there to be a robust effort to engage impacted communities in what they want and which school should be considered for closure. There also needs to be significant planning for how any closed campuses will be utilized for learning or educational purposes so that they don鈥檛 sit vacant. 

The dwindling student population also places public education in Hawaii at something of a crossroads. Funding cuts could lead to larger class sizes, program reductions and even school closures. But if the state maintains funding levels despite a drop in students, the changes could provide a chance to improve the educational experience for students who remain.

If fewer students are enrolled and funding doesn鈥檛 change, the per-student funding formula would increase, making it so that some schools could theoretically have the same amount of funding even with a decline in students, Hallett said. 

Fewer students without funding cuts could mean smaller class sizes, better art and music electives, or more one-on-one instruction, Jim Shon, a former state lawmaker and education policy expert said in an email.

鈥淭he legislature is the driver for this non-crisis,鈥� he said.

Dee at Stanford says the best things school districts can do right now is conduct a needs assessment about what students need most as they emerge from the pandemic, and engage in conversations about how to best handle any cuts that might lie ahead. The influx of federal relief funds into districts provides a unique opportunity to be proactive instead of reactive. 

鈥淐rises can also be opportunities,鈥� Dee said. The federal funds might allow some districts to be really thoughtful and nimble with how they navigate enrollment declines and fashion a better future for the students that attend their schools. 

It鈥檚 more likely for the process to be fairly reactive in most districts.

鈥淚t can be hard for school districts to engage in that kind of blue sky planning,鈥� Dee said. 鈥淪o I think what you鈥檙e more likely to see as districts face pressure to close schools is really contentious community discussions.”

This article was originally . Civil Beat鈥檚 education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.

New Hampshire public schools opened this school year with 1,845 fewer kids than they did last year 鈥� a 1.1% drop. But when it comes to the state鈥檚 enrollment trends, the change was hardly surprising.

For 20 years, attendance in New Hampshire schools has steadily declined, with no signs of a turning point. The state had the largest number of children in public school in its history in 2002: 207,684. But 2002 was the last year of growth. In 2022, the number of kids had fallen to 161,755, a 22% drop over two decades, this month.

And the proportion of children in New Hampshire has plummeted compared to other states. The state of children under 18 of any state between 2010 and 2020, according to an analysis by the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute, at a drop of 10.6%.

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The enrollment decline has diminished local school budgets and added to the state鈥檚 workforce shortages. The state is facing a , from certified licensed nursing assistants to long term care providers; that New Hampshire is likely to have around 24,400 openings in health care workers in the next decade. and businesses have had difficulty finding employees, and the drop in school populations comes despite the state growing in overall population since 2002, from 1.26 million in 2002 to 1.39 million in 2022.

鈥淚t is important for school leaders to understand how declining enrollment numbers may be impacting their districts and how to plan accordingly for the future,鈥� said Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut in a Nov. 15 press release accompanying the new numbers.

An easy turnaround is likely to be elusive; demographers and analysts say the dip is a result of long-term trends, many of them out of the state鈥檚 control.

Here are some of the reasons behind the decline.

New Hampshire鈥檚 birth rate is not keeping up with classroom sizes

At the heart of the problem is a simple math equation: There are not as many children being born in the state as there were even 10 years ago.

鈥淲hat we鈥檙e seeing in New Hampshire is the number of women of childbearing age is about the same, and yet the number of births occurring has diminished,鈥� said Ken Johnson, a professor of sociology and the senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire鈥檚 Carsey School of Public Policy. 鈥淪o in other words, the birth rate 鈥� the number of births per woman 鈥� has diminished.鈥�

That low birth rate is part of a national generational trend. When the state鈥檚 school populations climbed in the 1990s, many of the students were the children of baby boomers 鈥� the generation born between 1946 and 1964. That generation was famously large in number, and the children born from boomers filled classrooms through the 1980s and 1990s.

But subsequent generations, such as 鈥淕en X,鈥� born between 1965 and 1980, have not had as many children, and school age populations in the 2000s and 2010s have decreased.

The millennial generation, who began entering their twenties in 2001, have proven to be more disinterested in children than earlier generations, a trend that has caused New Hampshire and many other states鈥� birth rates to drop.

Demographers say the decrease in child births is a result of a number of factors, from societal shifts around marriage and children to economic anxieties caused by high childcare costs and accelerated by the Great Recession. The U.S. birthrate dropped after that recession and never recovered, Johnson noted.

But with most Millenials now in their thirties, demographers say it remains to be seen how consequential the trend will be. People at childbearing age today could be simply putting off having children until later in life, suggesting that birth rates could recover after a delay. Or they could be disinterested in children entirely, suggesting the birth rate dip would be felt more long term.

The pandemic baby bump was likely just a blip

In 2021, New Hampshire received some positive news: The state had a surge in births in the first half of the year. A study from Pew Trusts found that the state鈥檚 births increased 7% from 2019, making New Hampshire鈥檚 increase the fastest in the country.

State officials 鈥� from Gov. Chris Sununu to Director of the Division of Public Health Services Patricia Tilley 鈥� applauded the increase.

鈥淲e鈥檝e certainly seen the numbers that all births in New Hampshire have gone up in 2020 and 2021,鈥� Tilley said in an interview.

But Johnson warned that the increase appears to be short-lived. A number of states saw their birth rates decline in 2020, as the outbreak of COVID-19 and the lack of vaccines and reliable access to hospitals prompted many people to hold off pregnancy, Johnson said. In 2021, births increased for many states in the country, including New Hampshire 鈥� the result of an effective backlog.

But in 2022, the state鈥檚 birth rate appears to be returning to pre-pandemic levels, Johnson said, citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Migration into the state has not made up the difference

For years, New Hampshire has had one dynamic that has helped its low birthrate: The state tends to attract people in their thirties and forties.

Between 2010 and 2020, seven of New Hampshire鈥檚 10 counties saw their populations grow, according to a review of Census data by Johnson. The growth was a result of migration into those counties, Johnson鈥檚 research found.

In all, 89% of the state鈥檚 population gain over the decade between the 2010 Census and the 2020 Census was a result of migration, Johnson said. Data show that many of those people were in their thirties and forties, and many of them had children, Johnson said.

That migration has helped displace what demographers call 鈥渘atural decreases鈥� in population 鈥� trends where the deaths in an area outpace births. And it鈥檚 been the story for decades; two-thirds of people in New Hampshire over the age of 25 were not born in New Hampshire.

But recently, that migration hasn鈥檛 helped displace the drop-off in births.

鈥淣ew Hampshire traditionally had significantly more births than deaths,鈥� Johnson wrote in a report in 2021. 鈥淏ut that surplus has dwindled recently due to the growing number of seniors in the state, and because of drug-related deaths to young adults.鈥�

The pandemic provided a short term boost to New Hampshire鈥檚 migration. New Hampshire had a net migration gain of 16,000 between 2020 to 2021 鈥� a major jump for the state that was, in part, caused by people fleeing cities amid COVID-19. But it remains to be seen whether that migration is a long-term trend, Johnson said.

And in the end, migration can only do so much, he said.

鈥淚f that kind of migration were to continue, then the number of kids starting school or in school might go up somewhat,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 never going to be as much as the number of births. We鈥檙e talking about maybe a couple extra thousand (from migration) compared to the birth of 12,000.鈥�

Housing is a key barrier to a turnaround

If new arrivals to New Hampshire have helped grow the state鈥檚 school-aged population in the past, increasing those arrivals could be crucial to changing the school enrollment picture today.

That鈥檚 a goal that many in the state, from 鈥淪tay Work Play New Hampshire鈥� to Sununu, have embraced. 鈥淲e鈥檝e long known New Hampshire is the best state in the country to live, work, and raise a family,鈥� Sununu said in June, reacting to the Pew Study showing the jump in births in 2021.

But any plan to do so is going to face a major, familiar hurdle, notes Phil Sletten, research director at the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute: New Hampshire鈥檚 housing crisis. With housing available scant and prices high, the door into New Hampshire is less open for younger generations than it has been, Sletten said.

Less housing causes two problems, Sletten noted. 鈥淭here鈥檚 more friction there for people to be able to move into the state and take those job opportunities that they see here,鈥� he said.

鈥淎nd there鈥檚 also been less opportunity for kids who are being educated in New Hampshire schools and graduating to either stay here versus find housing and a job somewhere else, or be able to move back here after spending some time away from New Hampshire,鈥� he added.

The state is spending $100 million to try to boost housing construction by incentivizing towns and developers to work together, as part of the InvestNH program; lawmakers and executive councilors in federal funding to create 1,472 rental units in the coming years.

Increasing the state鈥檚 housing stock聽 and restoring a healthy housing market will not on its own reverse the bigger demographic trends holding back school growth, Sletten said. But if the market doesn鈥檛 improve, the state鈥檚 population loss has little chance to change either, he added.

鈥淭he housing constraint means that the in-migration 鈥� certainly the levels that we saw in the second half of the 20th century in New Hampshire 鈥� becomes more difficult,鈥� Sletten said.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Hampshire Bulletin maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Dana Wormald for questions: info@newhampshirebulletin.com. Follow New Hampshire Bulletin on and .

Oregon鈥檚 pandemic home-schooling boom is beginning to cool off, new state data shows.

The number of students taught at home this year is down about 7.5% from last year in 14 of the state鈥檚 19 Education Service Districts that responded to Capital Chronicle data requests and that track total home-school enrollment at the beginning of the school year. Parents who choose to home-school their kids must report their intent to do so with one of the state鈥檚 19 regional districts, which cover all 197 school districts in the state. The service districts coordinate certain services and resources that are more cost-effective to share between multiple districts.

Home-school enrollment among those districts is still about 40% higher today than it was in 2019, before the pandemic moved classes online for over a year.

Parents don鈥檛 have to report why they are choosing to home school when they register, but Rosalyn Newhouse, a volunteer with the Oregon Homeschool Education Network, said many members of the group鈥檚 Facebook page have discussed why they haven鈥檛 sent their kids back to school.

鈥淧eople who became involuntary home-schoolers during the pandemic said, 鈥榃ow, I didn鈥檛 realize my kid was under so much stress,鈥欌�� Newhouse said. 鈥淎 lot of parents are saying, 鈥楢ctually, this has worked out really well for us and we鈥檙e going to stick with it.鈥欌��

Between 2019 and 2020, the number of students registering for home schooling in Oregon shot up about 71%, from just over 18,000 to more than 31,000.

It was part of a nationwide trend. Between the spring of 2019 and the fall of 2020, the number of students registered for home schooling across the country doubled, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Among Black and African American students, the number taught at home quintupled.

Data from 18 states analyzed recently by The Associated Press shows a slight decline in home-schooled numbers since the pandemic, about 17%, but not a return to pre-pandemic levels.

In six of the 14 districts the Capital Chronicle reviewed, the number of home-schoolers is still up 30% or more from pre-pandemic levels. In two districts 鈥� the Columbia Gorge and South Coast 鈥� the number enrolled today has sunk below pre-pandemic levels.

In Oregon, the numbers have increased the most in the most populous districts.

In the Multnomah Educational Service District, which oversees Centennial, David Douglas, Parkrose, Corbett, Gresham-Barlow, Portland Public and the Riverdale school districts, the number of home-schoolers is up about 2% this year, and remains up about 422% from pre-pandemic levels.

In 2019, 725 students in the Multnomah district were enrolled in home school. Today, about 3,800 are 鈥� nearly 4% of the district鈥檚 estimated 100,000 students.

Newhouse said the numbers tend to be highest in counties such as Washington and Multnomah where parents have more resources for home schooling.

鈥淲here the populations are larger, there are more opportunities to hook up with other home-schoolers, so it’s easier to form a community,鈥� she said.

Home-schooled students still make up a relatively small portion of the overall student population in the state. Even with the boom in 2020, the number enrolled in home schooling was about 5% of the state鈥檚 total student population.

Home schooling in Oregon involves little oversight. The Oregon Department of Education recommends content standards and a framework for teaching at home on its website, but parents aren鈥檛 required to use it. Students need test for comprehension in major subject areas at grades three, five, eight, and 10. When it comes to earning a diploma at graduation, it鈥檚 up to local high schools to decide whether to award one.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on and .

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic still lingers in the number of students at traditional public schools in North Carolina.

While average daily membership (ADM) at traditional schools is up from last year, it is still below where it was before COVID-19. On the other hand, charter school ADM is now almost 20% higher than before the pandemic. But the bulk of the state’s students are taught in traditional public school settings, with charters making up less than 10% of total ADM.

Last week the state Department of Public Instruction released its first look at how many students are in the state’s public schools.

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In the chart below, you can see the ADM numbers for traditional and charter school students in 2019 (pre-pandemic), 2020 (in the peak of the pandemic), 2021 (last year) and now. Traditional schools gained 1.1% from last year to this year but are still down 3.2% overall from before COVID-19. Charter schools gained 6.4% over last year and are up 19.2% from before the pandemic.

DPI  and its calculation this way:

The total number of school days within a given term 鈥� usually a school month or school year 鈥� that a student’s name is on the current roll of a class, regardless of his/her being present or absent, is the “number of days in membership” for that student. ADM for each school month is based on the sum of the number of days in membership for all non-violating students in individual LEAs/Charters, divided by the number of days in the school month. The final ADM is the total days in membership for all students over the school year divided by the number of days school was in session. ADM is a more accurate count of the number of students in school than enrollment. 

For more on what ADM is and how if affects school funding, watch Watauga County Schools Superintendent Scott Elliott .

Methodology

To analyze the Month 1 ADM data from this year, we compared it with Month 1 ADM data from the previous three school years. You can find all the original data from DPI  under 鈥淎verage Daily Membership and Membership Last Day by School (ADM & MLD).鈥� The data for this year are the numbers as of November 4, 2022, and are preliminary.

Districts sometimes see an increase in ADM in Month 2. Month 2 data for this year aren鈥檛 available, so we used only the Month 1 data in our analysis.

We looked at the 115 public school districts in the state, which includes the 100 county districts and 15 city districts.

ADM analysis

In last year’s analysis, we found that the single largest year-to-year decrease was 9.13% and the largest increase was 12.47%.

Districts are, on the whole, seeing smaller decreases this year. The single largest decrease from 2021 to 2022 was 4.67%, in the Weldon City School System. The largest increase was 7.62%, for the Cherokee County School System.

Thirty districts dropped anywhere from 0.1% to 4.99% between 2021 and 2022. No districts dropped further. Three districts had no change, and 82 saw an increase.

The numbers are starker when it comes to the changes between 2019 and 2022. The single largest decrease was 22.22%, for Tyrrell County Schools. However, Pender County Schools increased its ADM by 10.94% in that time period. It had the largest increase.

During that period, nine school districts had drops in ADM of 10% or more. Thirty-five dropped anywhere from 5% to 9.99%. Fifty-five dropped from 0.1% to 4.99%. Only 16 districts saw any increases in ADM from 2019-2022.

Reactions

Alexis Schauss, chief financial officer of DPI, said the department usually doesn’t draw conclusions from Month 1 ADM data since it is usually lower than Month 2.

“We usually wait until Month 2 ADM to assess LEAs (Local Education Agencies),” she said in an email. “Having said that, there were many LEAs that were declining in ADM prior to COVID, so that would need to be taken into consideration.”

Lauren Fox, senior director of policy and research for the, said in an email that the increasing enrollment over last year supports the assertion from local education leaders that students are returning post COVID-19. She also said the growth of charter schools is important to monitor for its impact on traditional public schools.

“Enrollment in charter schools and the number of charter schools overall in the state have been growing since the cap was removed in 2011, and it is more important than ever to keep a focus on how this growth impacts equity and opportunity for all students,” she said. “For instance: what is the impact of charter schools on traditional public school budgets and school segregation? To what extent are charter schools serving all students equitably, and how are we ensuring that they are accountable to students and families?”

Brian Jodice, executive vice president of , said that growth in charter, private, and home school enrollment has been going up for the past decade, but that COVID-19 did help bolster those numbers.

“I do think the pandemic caused an additional uptick because those non-traditional options had the flexibility to physically open their doors faster than the traditional public school system, and there were many parents and families in our state who wanted their children physically back in school as soon as possible for a myriad of reasons,” he said. “If you couple the impacts of the pandemic on school enrollment with the growing movement in our state around a belief that all students should have access to the school of their choice regardless of income or zip code, then it should come as no surprise that we continue to see a rise in options like charters and private school choice programs like North Carolina鈥檚 Opportunity Scholarship Program.”

In the map below, you can hover over any district to see its Month 1 ADM data for this year or the previous three. You can also see the percent change in Month 1 ADM from 2021 to 2022 and from 2019 to 2022. Dots represent city school districts.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Kangro, unsure if LAUSD would reopen schools, made the move despite having a particular love for the local LA Unified schools in her quaint Mar Vista neighborhood.

鈥淲e love the specific teachers at our LAUSD school, but no one was standing up for our kids. So we went to a charter school and it’s nice because they don’t have to deal with all of this,鈥� Kangro told 社区黑料 referring to .

More than one in four California parents have switched their child鈥檚 school during the pandemic with most transferring from traditional public to charter schools, according to the .

The poll found a higher percentage of school switches among Democrats, white parents, families with English as a primary language and households earning more than $150,000 per year.

The annual poll, conducted by Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) and the University of Southern California (USC) Rossier School of Education, surveyed 2,000 registered California voters, including 500 parents, on their opinions and priorities for public education.听

The poll鈥檚 analysis on school switches attempts to understand what contributed to the historic 4.6% student enrollment decline 鈥� or more than 270,000 students statewide.

Among parents surveyed that switched their child鈥檚 school, the 52% that originally attended traditional public schools dropped to 41% 鈥� an 11 percentage point decline. In contrast, the 15% that attended charter schools grew to 23% 鈥� an 8 percentage point increase.

This comes as 71% of parents surveyed supported charter schools 鈥� a 15 percentage point increase from 2020 to 2022.

鈥淭he public school system needs to figure out what鈥檚 driving these decisions because without enrollment there’s no money and that’s a problem,鈥� said Morgan Polikoff, associate professor of education at the University of Southern California and co-author of the poll.

38% of parents decided to switch schools because they wanted a different educational experience for their children. The poll also found 31% of parents dissatisfied with COVID-related safety measures at their childrens鈥� school and 30% dissatisfied with mental health support or one-on-one learning help.

鈥淚n this current era where there are other school options, what we鈥檙e seeing is parents exercising their frustration by making these choices,鈥� Polikoff told 社区黑料. 

Here are stories from four parents why they changed their child鈥檚 school during the pandemic:

Carrie Kangro

As Kangro鈥檚 son graduated from Beethoven Street Elementary School in the spring of 2021, she wasn鈥檛 convinced LA Unified schools would open up in time for his transition to middle school.

Kangro now drives her son to WISH Charter Middle School a few miles away from their Mar Vista neighborhood.

鈥淚 would have gone to our local school happily had this all not happened,鈥� Kangro said.

Despite supporting traditional public schools, Kangro lost confidence in LAUSD due to the demands and the political turmoil with United Teachers Los Angeles.

鈥淯TLA was keeping schools closed as bargaining chips to get other things they wanted,鈥� Kangro said. 鈥淕ranted, teachers do need better pay, smaller classes and the whole laundry list of things they’ve been fighting for and I’m behind them on that. But it was just the wrong time and they sacrificed our kids鈥� mental health.鈥� A UTLA spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment. 

Despite all the chaos, Kangro plans to re-enroll her son back to an LA Unified school.

鈥淢y kids have grown up walking to their preschool and elementary school,鈥� Kangro said. 鈥淓ven though I love WISH [Charter Middle School], being in our community is even more important than all the gripes I have about LAUSD.鈥�

Tanisha Hall

Like Kangro, Tanisha Hall switched her oldest daughter鈥檚 school from a traditional public school to a charter school.

Hall, a foster parent in South LA, moved Cassandra, now 18, out of George Washington Preparatory High School after challenges with teachers and administrators during the pandemic in 2020.

鈥淪he’s an IEP student and was not receiving any of the services or additional support she was supposed to receive from her teachers,鈥� Hall said.

Hall also felt the teachers weren鈥檛 providing a supportive learning experience for her daughter.

鈥淭he teachers there had an attitude. Even if the kids have an attitude too, it鈥檚 your job to defuse that and still educate that child,鈥� Hall said. 鈥淓specially being a foster parent, you don’t know what my children are dealing with and their emotional issues.鈥�

As a result, Hall transferred her daughter to iLEAD Online Public Charter School midway through the academic year in the spring of 2021. 

鈥淚’m a huge champion for public schools, but most of the homeowners in this area don鈥檛 send their kids there and that鈥檚 why they have low enrollment and low funding,鈥� Hall said. 鈥淵ou also have people who work in these schools that aren鈥檛 getting paid a living wage, so I’m not blaming the teachers for their attitudes. However, the problems they face have an effect on how they address the kids.鈥�

Erica Meyrich-Pinciss

Erica Meyrich-Pinciss also transferred her son out of LAUSD and moved to Hermosa Beach, a beachside city in Los Angeles County with its own public school district.

Prior to their move, Meyrich-Pinciss said Barrett, now 6, diagnosed with Sotos syndrome, which causes developmental delays, had difficulty getting the services and one-on-one support her son needed when he attended kindergarten at Grand View Boulevard Elementary School.

鈥淏eing around other kids even though they had different abilities is good for my son so distance learning was not what he needed,鈥� she said.

At Grand View Boulevard Elementary School, Meyrich-Pinciss found her son placed in the wrong class setting.

鈥淗e was in a multiple disability program where he wouldn鈥檛 be around typical children,鈥� Meyrich-Pinciss said. 鈥淚 was just really angry because he understands things and it was clear that he needed to be on an academic track, but they didn鈥檛 want to give him an aid so they shoved him in there.鈥�

Meyrich-Pinciss鈥� son now attends Hermosa View Elementary School.

鈥淵ou had to fight tooth and nail to get anything out of [LAUSD],鈥� Meyrich-Pinciss said. 鈥淏ut at Hermosa [View Elementary School], they want to see him thrive. It’s important to them and they actually care about the children.鈥�

Lauren Phillips

Like Meyrich-Pinciss, Lauren Phillips transferred her daughter out of LAUSD and moved to El Segundo, another beachside city in Los Angeles County with their own public school district.

When Lola, now 7, attended kindergarten at Kentwood Elementary School in the spring of 2020, Phillips balanced work obligations during the pandemic while overseeing her daughter鈥檚 online learning 鈥� a huge strain.

鈥淲e were really excited about starting school but obviously it was Zoom from home,鈥� Phillips said. 鈥淚t got tiresome just because I wasn’t working from home, I was going into the office. So for me, I was ready to send my daughter back.鈥�

However, LAUSD鈥檚 COVID-19 reopening strategy later in the academic year did not provide Phillips and her daughter the sufficient in-person learning experience they were hoping for.

鈥淚n April [2021], my daughter got to go back to school but they didn鈥檛 tell us until the day before that our teacher wouldn鈥檛 return and that she鈥檇 Zoom from home,鈥� Phillips said. 鈥淚 was already in a situation where I was worried about how to get my daughter there and how to pick her up for just three hours a day. So I was disappointed that she was going to still be doing Zoom but in the classroom.鈥�

Because of this, Phillips asked Kentwood Elementary School if her daughter could return to fully remote learning but was met with an inadequate response.

鈥淭he principal at the time said that they couldn鈥檛 accommodate us on Zoom and that I needed to wait two weeks,鈥� Phillips said. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 understand why we had to wait when there鈥檚 ample room online. It鈥檚 not like we were doing the reverse where the school had to physically fit a kid in a classroom. So I decided at that time we were going to pull her out of LAUSD and we never went back.鈥�

Phillips鈥� daughter now attends Center Street Elementary School.

鈥淸LAUSD] is too big of a school district and there鈥檚 too many children with too many different needs,鈥� Phillips said. 鈥淲e wanted to feel like we weren鈥檛 just a number in a system.鈥�

A spokesperson for LAUSD said the district: 鈥渋s continuing to focus on the long-term sustainability鈥hrough budgetary, programmatic and human resources strategies鈥ased on current year enrollment, we are seeing improvements, demonstrating that students are returning to in-person learning because families are recognizing all of our efforts to ensure students are provided safe learning environments and quality in-person instruction.鈥�

County-level voting patterns revealed school districts in Biden-elected counties lost more students over the last two academic years than those that voted for Trump because they tended to stay closed longer, according to the report.

Nat Malkus, a senior fellow and deputy director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, had difficulty finding exceptions to the enrollment trend.

鈥淚t’s not just a school district story, it’s a community story,鈥� Malkus tells 社区黑料. 鈥淲ho bears responsibility for this to some degree? Dear reader, it may be you.鈥�

According to the report, public school K鈥�12 enrollment dropped by 2.9% 鈥� a loss of over 1.3 million students since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, marking the largest decline in the history of the U.S.

Here are the key takeaways from the report:

1. Disparities in student enrollment were influenced by school district decisions on in-person versus remote class time and safety measures.

Public school districts and their respective communities are described in the report as either 鈥淐OVID-cautious鈥� or 鈥淐OVID-assertive.鈥�

COVID-cautious districts are those that spent the most time in remote learning and maintained safety measures. In contrast, COVID-assertive districts returned to in-person learning earlier and removed safety measures faster.

鈥淭hese categorizations are not meant to imply that districts either threw caution to the wind or were not interested in returning students to the classrooms,鈥� the report said. 鈥淚nstead, these categories describe which of the two goals the districts prioritized when pressed.鈥�

According to the report, 90% of COVID-cautious districts and 70% of COVID-assertive districts experienced enrollment declines in the past two school years.

COVID-cautious districts experienced an enrollment decline of 4.4% and COVID-assertive districts experienced 1.2%. This is a disparity of one in 23 students compared to one in 87 students.

2. Student enrollment rebounded in Trump-elected counties while enrollment continued to decline in Biden-elected counties.

The 2020 presidential election impacted student enrollment, where schools in Trump-elected counties offered a significant amount of in-person class time compared to Biden-elected counties, according to the report.

The report also found Trump-elected counties saw enrollments rebound in the 2021-22 school year, suggesting voting patterns influenced COVID-cautious and COVID-assertive decisions.

鈥淐ertainly Donald Trump’s tweets about 鈥榟ey, all students have to go back to school and don’t let the Democrats keep them out of school鈥� is something that is going to polarize people politically,鈥� Malkus told 社区黑料. 鈥淗owever, the response to Trump was just as adept when politicians on both sides took stands on the matter.鈥�

3. Public school districts may experience revenue declines based on student enrollment.

COVID-cautious districts may experience a larger revenue decline compared to COVID-assertive districts as a result of in-person class time disparities.

鈥淗ow do these districts maintain services under sharp decreases in enrollment? They鈥檙e going to have lower revenue and that鈥檚 going to be painful for school districts, and by extension, for students,鈥� Malkus said. 

This includes potential hiring freezes, school closures, cuts to programs, teacher and staff layoffs and classroom consolidations, according to the report.

鈥淐OVID-cautious tendencies could extend the enrollment differentials for longer, but we won’t know the answer to that until we get another round of enrollment data so I hesitate to predict the future,鈥� Malkus said of the 2022-23 school year.

However, Malkus found COVID-cautious districts have been following their COVID-assertive counterparts for the 2022-23 school year when it comes to mask mandates, vaccine requirements and other safety measures.

鈥淚t does seem to some degree that the COVID-cautious districts are giving way to normalcy, but we’ll see if that lasts in the face of potential endemic surges to come,鈥� Malkus said.

While some schools and districts prioritized investments in portable or low-cost air filters and other technology, experts say they may be missing an opportunity to upgrade air and climate systems that could have a measurable impact on students. 鈥淚f you look at the research, it shows that a school鈥檚 literal climate 鈥� the heat, the mold, the humidity 鈥� directly affects learning,鈥� said Phyllis Jordan, associate director of FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University鈥檚 McCourt School of Public Policy. 

Another federal report indicates over 36,000 schools were in need of air system upgrades even before the pandemic, a number experts say likely climbed during the pandemic. 

Looking beyond relief funds, here are seven other updates from across the country about how states and school systems are confronting the challenges posed by COVID-19 and its variants 鈥� and working to preserve student progress amid the pandemic:

INDIANA 鈥� Rate of Indiana High School Students Headed to College drops to 53%

Enrollment declines that began before the COVID-19 pandemic are continuing in the Hoosier State, with officials recently . As Chalkbeat reports, state education officials say the pandemic exacerbated the trend, with enrollment declining 1.8% or 110,000 students. 鈥淥ne of the questions that we just have to come back to is, just where are those kids?鈥� said Heather J. Hough, executive director of the Policy Analysis for California Education. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 have satisfying data to answer that question.鈥�

MAINE 鈥� Gov. Janet Mills Announces $12.3 Million Expansion of Statewide Apprenticeship Programs

Maine schools are expected to more than double the number of apprenticeship programs available for students while also doubling the number of businesses and companies sponsoring the opportunities. The more than , including health care, construction, plumbing, heating/ventilation/air conditioning, welding, shipbuilding and marine, and engineering, and could increase the number of students graduating school debt-free, credentialed, and employed. 鈥淎pprentices in Maine, who completed their program in the last two years increased their wages, on average, by nearly 40%, even during the height of the pandemic,鈥� said Gov. Janet Mills.

MISSOURI 鈥� Rural Explosion in Four-Day School Week Aimed at Recruiting Teachers

A quarter of all school districts in Missouri , largely as a result of districts working to recruit and retain teachers amid a growing national teacher shortage. Officials across the state say four-day weeks have made recruitment easier in hard-pressed rural communities, but signal that low teacher salaries and increasingly challenging teacher work conditions continue to ratchet up the challenge of hiring and keeping talent.

NEW JERSEY 鈥� State Creates Path for More Prospective Teachers, as Shortages Grow

Earlier this month, New Jersey passed a suite of changes in hopes of guiding more teaching candidates into the profession and into classrooms. Most notably, the changes would allow candidates who did not score sufficiently on licensure tests or earn sufficient grade points averages to enter a coaching pilot via the alternative licensure program. In response to some concerns that the move could lower standards for incoming teachers, State Board member Nedd James Johnson said the changes will remove barriers that have been preventing qualified applicants to enter the field.

ARKANSAS 鈥� Gov. Hutchinson Supports Proposal to Raise Minimum Salaries of Teachers to $46,000

Arkansas lawmakers sent a number of education bills to Governor Asa Hutchinson鈥檚 desk alongside a record K-12 budget recently as the state legislature adjourned. The expanded state budget , while a series of legislation would expand resources for classroom supplies, open new routes to licensure for teacher candidates, and set controversial rules on classroom discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation.

MICHIGAN 鈥� Financial Literacy Requirement Becomes Law for Michigan Students

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a new law . The move lends to a trend of schools nationwide increasingly trying to widen access to financial literacy courses for students. 鈥淎s a mom, I want every kid who graduates in Michigan to enter the world with a diverse set of skills and knowledge, and that must include financial literacy,鈥� Whitmer said in a written statement.

TEXAS 鈥� Dallas Sees Positive Results in First Year of Discipline Reform

A transformation of Dallas Independent Schools鈥� disciplinary policies has already seen encouraging success, say school and district leaders. The opening of 60 鈥淩eset Centers鈥� staffed with trained professionals was aimed at working through issues with students before situations result in suspensions, says Superintendent Michael Hinojosa. The initiative required roughly $4 million in federal recovery funds to implement, but has already resulted in over $2 million in cost savings .

This update on pandemic recovery in education collects and shares news updates from the district, state, and national levels as all stakeholders continue to work on developing safe, innovative plans to resume schooling and address learning loss. It鈥檚 an offshoot of the Collaborative for Student Success鈥� QuickSheet newsletter, which you can .

Disruptions associated with virtual learning impacted over 600 million students worldwide, according to the report, while nearly 470 million children could not be reached by digital programs at all. The learning loss associated with global school closures appears 鈥�,鈥� said Robert Jenkins, UNICEF chief of education.

In the United States, was seen in steep declines in the rates of students performing proficiently in math and English, including in states like Texas, California, Ohio, and North Carolina, as well as widespread drops in statewide graduation rates. Recent by Chalkbeat and The Associated Press specifically points to falling graduation rates in more than 20 states as an indicator that 鈥渢he coronavirus may have ended nearly two decades of nationwide progress toward getting more students diplomas.鈥�

Looking beyond global learning loss and America鈥檚 waning graduation rates, here are nine other updates from across the country about how states and school systems are confronting the challenges posed by COVID-19 and its variants 鈥� and working to preserve student progress amid the pandemic:

1NEW YORK 鈥� NYC Schools Show Broad Declines in Enrollment Amid Pandemic

According to New York state data, Chalkbeat reports that about this year, with nearly 23% losing 10% or more of their students.听Black and white students in grades K-12 saw the largest drops of all racial groups this school year, declining about 7.5% each; Asian American student enrollment dropped 5% and for Latino students, the drop was 4.5%. School systems across the country have also experienced enrollment declines this year, including nearly 6% in Los Angeles and , the nation鈥檚 second and third largest districts.

2 TENNESSEE 鈥� Gov. Lee proposes $1 billion boost for Tennessee education

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced . 鈥淭he priorities laid out in the State of the State, including an additional $1 billion investment in education, an increase in teacher pay, and dedication to expanding career and technical opportunities for students, if adhered to, will make the 2022 legislative session a success for Tennessee鈥檚 students and their futures,鈥� Adam Lister, president and CEO of Tennesseans for Student Success, a middle Tennessee-based nonprofit organization, said in a statement.

3IOWA 鈥� Gov. Directs Federal K-12 Funding to Increase Teacher Diversity

Gov. Kim Reynolds announced relying on federal relief funds to support high school students who want to earn a paraeducator certificate and associate’s degree and assist paraeducators who want to earn a bachelor’s degree. Lawrence Bice, chair of the task force, told the Iowa State Board of Education that the program is expected to bring in a diverse group of applicants. show more teachers of color are entering the profession, but not enough to keep up with student demographics. Of Iowa’s new teachers in 2000, 2.8% were people of color; two decades later, the figure grew to 5.7%.

4 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 鈥� Health Department Issues Test-to-Stay Guidance for Schools

The D.C. Health Department issued new guidance that recommends as an alternative to quarantining and to keep more students in school. So far, the school system has launched a test-to-stay pilot program only in selected pre-kindergarten classes, whose students are not yet eligible for a coronavirus vaccine. The guidance also updates isolation rules for school staff and students who develop COVID-19.

5 LOUISIANA 鈥� New Orleans Becomes First District to Set Student Vaccination Requirement

New Orleans is set to be , though experts are warning that state laws will likely allow parents to easily opt-out their children. District officials recognized the status of state laws, but stated their goals were to eventually work with every student and family to either get vaccinated or obtain a proper waiver.

6 MICHIGAN 鈥� Public Poll Shows Priorities for COVID Relief Funding

A survey of hundreds of educators, parents, and community members in Michigan showed strong support for , which both rated among the top of a list of priorities. Despite widespread support for the priorities, the survey did show some differences in focus between parents and non-parents, as well as between Democrats and Republicans.

7 KANSAS 鈥� Lawmakers Resist Ending Limitations on Virtual Learning

Kansas lawmakers are standing behind a current state law , forcing districts to close schools instead when a COVID surge necessitates. 鈥淚鈥檓 almost glad that we passed this because now we can鈥檛 blame them for being virtual, even though they don鈥檛 have the choice. If they did, they would be blamed,鈥� Kansas Senate Minority Whip Sen. Pat Pettey, D-Kansas City, explained.

8 ILLINOIS 鈥� Gov. Ptritzker Navigates Paid Leave, Vaccination Deal for School Staff

Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a new statewide compromise: public school and higher education employees across Illinois 鈥� as long as they鈥檙e fully vaccinated. 鈥淰accines are a vital tool in preventing the deadly effects of COVID-19, and those who take the steps to be fully vaccinated against this virus are doing their part to keep everyone safe,鈥� Pritzker said in a statement. The Chicago Teachers Union lauded the agreement Monday, saying Pritzker 鈥渃learly understands the value of cooperating with workers, and we hope (Chicago Public Schools) follows his lead.鈥�

9 ARIZONA 鈥� State Sues Federal Government Over Funding, Mask Mandates

Arizona sued the Biden administration claiming that the Treasury Department exceeded its legal authority by . This is in response to the Treasury Department threatening to rescind some of the $2.1 billion Arizona received because the state used the funds to establish two programs the federal government said undermine the use of masks in schools. 鈥淭reasury believes the rule is correct and allowed by the statute and Constitution,鈥� said Dayanara Ramirez, a Treasury spokesperson.

This update on pandemic recovery in education collects and shares news updates from the district, state, and national levels as all stakeholders continue to work on developing safe, innovative plans to resume schooling and address learning loss. It鈥檚 an offshoot of the Collaborative for Student Success鈥� QuickSheet newsletter, which you can .听

鈥淵ou better listen,鈥� she said emphatically. 鈥淵ou better listen to what parents are telling you. Did we just see the elections that happened this fall? People who are out of step on charter schools and are running for elective office are going to be out of office.鈥�

Veney is Senior VP of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, which recently analyzed data from 42 states showing an influx of 240,000 students into charter schools during the 2020-2021 school year 鈥� the highest growth seen in six years.听

鈥淧arents are holding us all accountable,鈥� she added. 鈥淭hey are demanding more for their kids. We need more, not fewer public school options. We need to equip all public schools to have the nimbleness and the flexibility that we see in the charter sector.鈥�

Veney expressed these views during an online panel Wednesdy presented by 社区黑料 and the Reinventing America鈥檚 Schools project of the Progressive Policy Institute. Listening to parents 鈥� so many of whom were frustrated and angered by how their schools reacted to COVID 鈥� was among the central themes of the discussion.

Jessica Sutter, who represents Ward 6 on the District of Columbia State Board of Education, said, 鈥淧arents made a lot of different choices during the pandemic,鈥� noting that her ward saw a 950-student increase in charter school enrollment and a 300-student increase in homeschooling.听

鈥淧arents are looking for schools that are responsive to them,鈥� she said. 鈥淲atching parents move, they鈥檙e moving to places where they feel like the school heard them and reached out to say, 鈥榳hat kind of measures do we need to have in place to make you feel safe about sending your children back to the building; what kind of communication is going to be helpful this year, post-pandemic, knowing how difficult last year was for you and your students?鈥欌��

鈥淎nd we saw really wonderful things from some of our public charter schools in making that happen,鈥� Sutter said. 鈥淲e saw Friendship Public Charter Schools reaching out to parents, saying, 鈥榳e’re going to do onsite testing for 100 percent of students and faculty every day,鈥� and they did that before that was the common practice citywide.鈥�

Katrina Merkerson, a mother from Birmingham, Ala., spoke about moving her son into the i3 Academy during the height of uncertainty about the pandemic in the summer of 2020. 鈥淭his was July; school was slated to start the first week of August and there were no answers coming from the district; none at all,鈥� she said.

A friend told her about i3 Academy, and after going through the enrollment process, Merkerson said, 鈥淚t was absolutely the best decision that I made for my son.鈥�

鈥淚n the pandemic,鈥� she said, 鈥減arents were scrambling around because nobody knew what was going to happen. But i3 Academy had a plan in place already.鈥� She said that the school stayed open throughout the pandemic and that her son is thriving in his education. 鈥淗e鈥檚 a 6th-grader now at the middle school, and he is just off the chain.鈥�

A.J. Crabill, the Deputy Commissioner for Governance of the Texas Education Agency, said has not seen traditional public schools innovating ways to improve student achievement at the systemic level. 鈥淢ost of the innovation that I鈥檝e seen has been: how do we educate in the middle of a pandemic.鈥�

He added: 鈥淢y sense is that the only way that traditional public schools see a significant resurgence in enrollment is through improving the quality of instruction. I don鈥檛 think there are gimmicks that work. I think either we have schools that dramatically demonstrate improvement in student outcomes or we don鈥檛.听

鈥淎nd whether they be charter schools or traditional district schools, the ones that can demonstrate improvements, I hope, will grow鈥nd the ones who can鈥檛 I hope will go away.鈥�

Crabill also noted how critically important it is for all schools to learn from this pandemic. 鈥淎s I visit with professors and researchers across the country, many are already looking at how can we dig into the data that the pandemic provides to learn what can we do from a policy level in public education鈥�. What are the strategies that work and what are the strategies that don鈥檛 work?鈥�

鈥淚 suspect,鈥� he added, 鈥渢he schools that had more in-person instruction are going to show greater results, and that鈥檚 going to be a clear policy description for future pandemics. I think of this as our starter pandemic.鈥�