Days before Christmas, the school board in Jackson, Mississippi, voted to close 11 schools and consolidate two more — a radical move that parents in the area had long feared. Some of those on the list have lost 30% or more of their students since 2018.
Despite the district's high poverty rates, Superintendent Eric Green said he can no longer afford to hire social workers and counselors in schools that have experienced long periods of declining enrollment. Many old buildings were collapsing. He said it doesn't make sense for plumbers and HVAC technicians to be “racing here and there across town” every morning to keep them working.
“Should we really be investing this money in these school buildings if they are at best at half capacity?” Asked.
Such questions are weighing heavily on district leaders across the country. Fresh out of the academic struggles that followed the pandemic, and with federal relief money soon to run out, they now face a massive enrollment crunch.
“I'm not surprised people didn't want to talk about this until last fall,” said Brian Eschbacher, an enrollment consultant. “There was always hope that the children would come back.”
But most have not, part of a decline that is expected to continue throughout the decade. Oregon, New Mexico and West Virginia are among the states expected to see enrollment decline by at least another 10%.
A new analysis of national enrollment data, prepared by researchers at the Brookings Institution and supplemented by reporting from The 74, provides the most detailed look yet at how the school-level crisis is evolving, as well as the districts facing it. Or you will soon face difficult decisions about closures and cutbacks.
“Refuse to register everywhere”
In research published in October, Brookings Institution researchers found that over a four-year period spanning the pandemic, about 12% of elementary schools and 9% of middle schools lost at least one-fifth of their enrollment. At 74's request, they expanded this data to include all 4,428 schools in the country that reached or exceeded the 20% decline.
The results are alarming: “Enrollment rates are declining everywhere,” said Sophocles Gullas, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
In the years before the coronavirus shutdowns, fewer than 2,000 of the nation's roughly 98,000 schools saw a Jackson-level decline. This number doubled between 2019 and 2021.
Among districts with more than 50,000 students, the largest share of schools that have declined by 20% or more are concentrated in the South. They include Memphis Shelby in Tennessee, DeKalb County Schools near Atlanta, and several schools in Texas. Other large and medium-sized districts that top the list include Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Albuquerque and Granite Public Schools in Utah.
The shorter student roster each year may not make headlines, but it could serve as a harbinger of things to come, Golas said. Administrators at shrinking schools often must consolidate classes, cut jobs, or rely on donations to save popular sports or music programs.
“The first place where these logistical and financial pressures will appear is school,” he said.
Many of those facing such pressures are clustered in some of the country's largest areas, among them:
- Clark County, Nevada33 out of more than 300 schools, most of them primary, saw a loss of 20% between 2019 and 2021. Additional declines last school year translated into a nearly $33 million reduction in state funds.
- Tucson, Arizona15% of its 82 schools lost five or more students. Observers say the state's strong school choice climate is a contributing factor.
- Kansas City, Missouri, which closed two elementary schools last school year, one of which saw at least a 20% drop in enrollment after the pandemic. Five other schools saw similar declines.
