Week of 3/21: K-12 Enrollment Trends
Over ninety percent of the Top 500 school districts are now mask-optional. This week we look at K-12 public school enrollments for 2021/22 versus...
This week we look at the Top 15 largest gains and declines across City and Suburban school districts nationwide, plus ESSER III spending and Early Education.
Burbio is conducting a Webinar at 3 pm this Tuesday, May 10th, titled "Who is Spending on What: $80 billion of ESSER III Spending Plans" for companies that work with K-12. Register here for this brief but critical dive into how to uncover the details of ESSER III spending across the U.S.
This week we look at the Top 15 largest gains and declines across City and Suburban school districts nationwide, plus ESSER III spending and Early Education. More below.
1. This week we highlight enrollment trends among districts across the U.S. by the NCES locale definitions. We focus on City and Suburban districts. Note that Burbio has enrollment data from 44 states plus the District of Columbia, missing only Idaho, Montana, Rhode Island, Vermont, Tennessee and Kentucky. In the analysis below we eliminated districts whose enrollment during 2020/21 consisted disproportionately of virtual students who lived far outside the district boundaries.
- Our first chart is fifteen City districts with the biggest declines and the biggest increases during 2021/22 versus 2020/21. We used a minimum enrollment of 20,000 students per district.
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- The next chart is the Suburban locale. We used a minimum enrollment of 5,000.
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This is just a snapshot of wide-ranging enrollment shifts occurring across the country and within individual states. We note, for example, the intra-state district movement within Oklahoma and Texas evidenced from the charts above, as well as relatively high drops in certain suburban California districts. In addition, we observe that the "growth" columns for both City and Suburban locales feature districts from Florida, Arizona, and South Carolina, three states with the fastest growing K-12 enrollment in the U.S. A state by state map can be found at the bottom of our ESSER III spending page.
2. In observations from around the U.S.:
- Broken Arrow Public Schools, OK is launching a staff daycare program in August. “Our mission is to attract and retain the very best employees who serve our students on a daily basis," notes the release. “We are incredibly excited to be able to provide a nurturing and caring environment for our employees’ children.”
- Casa Grande Elementary School District # 4, AZ is moving to a four day school week. "The Governing Board began studying the possibility of a 4-Day school week in February after families and staff approached them with the idea of helping recruit and retain high-quality educators. Over 1,900 community survey responses were reviewed . . . . two public hearings were held prior to the approval."
- Rockdale County Public Schools, GA "will require all students to carry clear book bags beginning with the 2022-23 school year" with the district purchasing 16,500 clear book bags for distribution. "This is just another safety measure in our comprehensive plan," notes the announcement.
- Anne Arundel County Public Schools, MD "is implementing a mandatory bus registration process for the upcoming school year . . . Students whose families do not complete registration forms will not be eligible to ride a school bus for the entire 2022-23 school year even if they reside in the transportation zone."
- Twenty nine of the 88 elementary schools in Albuquerque, NM will extend their school year by ten days, with twenty of those also having a longer school day, paid for out of ESSER funds.
3. Burbio's ESSER III spending tracker has now tabulated over 4,400 detailed plans from districts that have been allocated $79 billion and represent over 70% of US K-12 students. This week we take a look at some examples of spending on Early Education:
- Patchogue-Medford School District, NY ($16MM) " . . . .will be adding early intervention services by hiring an additional speech therapist and additional occupational therapist that will service kindergarten and pre-k students . . . and will be used to add additional pre-K programs for all students including ELLs and students with disabilities."
- White Mountains Regional School District, NH ($5MM) will be "Addressing learning loss among students, including low-income students, children with disabilities, students experiencing homelessness, and children and youth in foster care by extending and expanding our prekindergarten program . . . " during 2022/23.
- Lafourche Parish School District, LA ($30.9MM) will be spending $221,000 on Early Childhood Education through additional staff and learning materials.
- Washington County School District, UT ($35.7MM) will be spending $3.4MM to add full day kindergarten.
- AOS 94 MSAD 46 Dexter, ME ($4.3MM) will be spending $2MM on a new facility for Early Childhood and some additional programs ("The current facility is not a school building . . is off-campus . .. has a non-mechanical air-filtration system . . . ") while also spending $200,000 "to expand its student-centered and standards-based Public Pre-Kindergarten program to provide spaces for early identification, intervention, remediation and acceleration for pre-kindergarten-age learners."
- Sweetwater County School District # 1, WY ($14.2MM) will be spending as follows: "Three teaching staff are needed as we build and develop an early intervention preschool program infrastructure that would enable the delivery of high-quality instruction and services to preschool children, ages 3-5. Estimated budget: $670,000.00 over FY 23 and FY 24."
- Norfolk Public Schools, VA ($113.3MM) will be funding "Additional PreK seats for students who do not qualify for PreK through Virginia Preschool Initiative (VPI) funding . . . " plus "Funds for an early literacy tutoring program in grades K-2 to support students identified as needing improvement."
- Albuquerque Public Schools, NM ($230MM) will be spending $3MM on a first site for Early Education Hubs.