It won’t get a ton of national headlines, but your local media (if you still have one) will be all over this story in the coming decade: Fewer and fewer children are attending the local public school, spurring debates over closures, consolidations, and downsizing.

Nearly 50.8 million students attended a K-12 public school in the fall of 2019, according to the National Center for Educational Statistics. Five years later, after some COVID-19 ups and downs, the number was below 49.4 million and is still falling.