Washington state’s largest school district is considering closing some schools and laying off staff in the near future as enrollment rates continue to fall after the pandemic.
Seattle Public Schools officials floated the idea of ”consolidating” the schools during a workshop reported on by The Seattle Times. Funding for most school districts is tied to the number of students, so enrollment declines are likely to contribute to budget deficits.
The city’s school system has lost more than 3,500 students since the pandemic and expects to lose another 3,000 by the 2025-2026 school year, according to district data. If that happens, it will mark a 12.5% decline in enrollment over six years.
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It’s not entirely clear where the students are going, said Jen Garrison Stuber of the Washington Home Education Organization.
Homeschooling rates in Washington nearly doubled at the height of the pandemic, according to state data, and are currently up about 43% during the 2019-2020 school year. But in Seattle, there are actually fewer registered homeschoolers than before the pandemic, Garrison Stuber said.
“I really think what Seattle is seeing, those students have either gone to private schools or have left the school district and moved somewhere else,” he said.
Seattle could start consolidating schools as early as fall 2024, with rough estimates showing a savings of $28 million, the Times reported.
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In Oregon, Portland schools have seen an even greater exodus, losing around 8% of their students since 2019, according to The Oregonian. Most of that decline was at the elementary level, but Portland Public Schools officials do not plan to close any schools, the outlet reported.
Garrison Stuber suspects that a desire for stability is motivating some parents who have kept their children out of public schools after the pandemic.
“A lot [homeschool parents] said, ‘We don’t want the schools to pull the rug out for us,'” he said.
And as remote learning forced many parents to effectively take on homeschooling duties, Garrison Stuber said some families found joy in taking their children’s education into their own hands.
“The dirty little secret of homeschooling: You end up loving your kids,” he said. “They’re excited about what they’re getting into and the things they’re learning.”
Public schools in the United States have seen a drop in enrollment rates since the coronavirus pandemic began. (iStock)
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The enrollment decline isn’t limited to blue states that had strict pandemic lockdowns and restrictions: Texas officials project a 2.2% decline over the next four years, pointing to declining enrollment rates as the cause. birth.
The politicization of the classroom has also led some parents to send their children to private schools or educate them at home.
“I feel like I can control what they learn, control the rate at which they learn so they learn at a much faster rate, and control outside influences in terms of peer pressure, bullying, and political agendas,” the mother said. by Texas Tara Carter. she told Fox News in September, after checking her young children out of public school.
