Public schools across the country that saw a dip in enrollment due to COVID-19 concerns are trying to entice wary parents back before the next school year begins — not only for the students’ sakes but in some cases to save jobs.
Some are hosting early back-to-school nights, while others like Glendale Elementary School in Arizona are putting together a drive-thru kindergarten readiness event.
“Our goal is just trying to get kids here and get families back at William C. Jack School,” Principal Denis Parcells told FOX10.
The school is offering preschool families registration packets and kindergarten goody bags in an effort to show that it is ready for a new batch of students.
Unfortunately, it was too little, too late for another Arizona county. Gilbert Public Schools recently laid off 152 teachers and other employees, citing declining student enrollment. The employees were notified via email in late March.
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“This afternoon we made the very difficult decision to implement a necessary reduction in force for the 2021/22 school year as a result of loss of student enrollment,” the email, obtained by AZcentral.com, said.
“Gilbert Public Schools, along with many other school districts, faces a reduced number of students going into the next school year following the global pandemic,” the message read. “We continue to make every effort to increase enrollment for next year and it is our hope that many students lost during this pandemic will return to our schools over the next year.”
Gilbert Public Schools has seen a year-over-year loss of 1,600 students, spokeswoman Dawn Antestenis said.
The district employs just over 2,000 people.
The Arizona Department of Education recently released a report that showed a decline in enrollment across the board of about 38,000 students. However, of that, 40% of the decline came from kindergarten and preschool programs.
The state’s decrease in enrollment tracks with others around the country that shut their doors amid coronavirus lockdowns and have struggled to reopen safely for in-person classes.
Elementary schools in Buffalo, New York, are seeing a 45% decrease in prekindergarten enrollment as well as declines in suburban districts. While the number of pre-K students is down across the entire state, Buffalo’s numbers are more than double the state average of 19%.
In Texas, there was a reported 33% drop in pre-K enrollment in the Austin area in January, according to E3Alliance, a regional, data-driven education collaborative based in the city.
The beginning of the 2020 school year was marked by multiple changes in reopening plans as well as widespread confusion from teachers, administrators, parents, and students. More than a year on, there are still concerns about safety and worries about unequal access to technology.
Across the country, there was an exodus from public school rolls that some feared could become a national crisis. According to data from 33 states obtained by Chalkbeat and the Associated Press, public K-12 enrollment this past fall has dropped by more than 2%.
The swing is significant because enrollment overall had been going up by a half a percent in recent years. The decline could have an impact going forward for school budgets that are dependent on headcounts.
Pedro Noguera, the dean of the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education, told Chalkbeat that a bigger concern is that the thousands of children who are no longer attending class could be deprived of education learning altogether.
“I would like to hope that many of them are from homes where their parents have taken responsibility on their own to provide for their education,” Noguera said, adding that affluent families will have an easier time doing that. “My fear is that large numbers have simply gotten discouraged and given up.”
Another factor playing into declining enrollment is the popularity of home schooling. While it’s no surprise the number of families choosing to go the home-school route swelled during the pandemic, the number of home-schoolers doubled in 2020.
New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that between April 25 and May 5, 2020, the census reported 5.4% of all U.S. households with school-age children were home schooling. That number jumped to 11.1% of households by fall.
“It’s clear that in an unprecedented environment, families are seeking solutions that will reliably meet their health and safety needs, their childcare needs and the learning and socio-emotional needs of their children,” the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey said.
Home schooling differed by race and region, the report found.
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Alaska went from 9.6% of households to 27.5% of households. In Florida, the rate jumped from 5% to 18.1%, and it grew in Vermont from 4.1% to 16.9%.
