Greendale Largely Unaffected By Statewide School Enrollment Drops

GREENDALE, WI — A profound nationwide drop in public school enrollment could have lasting effects in Wisconsin, some of which could extend far beyond the pandemic.

A new analysis conducted by The Associated Press and Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering education, shows student enrollment dropped in nearly every U.S. state, including Wisconsin last year.

Hawaii was the lone exception, where enrollment increased by a meager 0.2 percent.

The pandemic is the likely culprit behind the sharp declines, according to The AP analysis.

When schools moved online during the pandemic, many parents opted to send their kids elsewhere. While some pulled children out of public schools to home-school them, others enrolled their kids in private schools since many continued to offer in-person instruction.

Now, some school officials are worried those students may never return, The AP reported. If they don’t, it’s a shift that could not only affect district funding but also change the demographics of America’s schools.

In Wisconsin, total student enrollment in grades K-12 dropped from 858,833 students in 2019-20 to 829,935 in 2020-21, marking a 2.93 percent decrease.

The biggest decrease was among black students, where enrollment numbers fell 4.34 percent.

Here’s a look at how enrollment changed among other groups in Wisconsin:

• Black students: -4.34 percent
• Hispanic students: -1.13 percent
• Asian American students: -1.67 percent
• White students: Down -3.6 percent
• Economically disadvantaged students: Increased by .11 percent
• Non-economically disadvantaged students: -5.6 percent

Greendale Schools has so far been spared from the enrollment decreases.

Prior to the pandemic, Greendale Schools reported an increase in student enrollment, a district official said. The district expects that trend to continue.

The increase in enrollment in Greendale could owe itself to the increased rate of home sales, the district said. Post-pandemic, the district expects enrollment to continue to climb, an official told Patch.

Nationwide, enrollment in preschool to 12th grade dropped by 2.6 percent across 41 states last fall, according to the analysis done by The AP and Chalkbeat.

The decline was steepest among white students, whose enrollment fell more than 4 percent.

Early signs show enrollment may not fully recover, according to The AP’s report. A sustained drop in enrollment could mean two things.

First, schools that lose students will eventually lose funding for those students.

Generally, public schools are funded on a per-student basis through federal, state and local sources. Nearly half of those funds come from local property taxes. Fewer students could mean an increase in property taxes to make up for the decrease in per-student funding.

A dip in enrollment is also likely to hit the wallet of poorer districts harder, Bruce Baker, an education professor at Rutgers University, told National Public Radio.

"If you've got a district where 70, 80 percent of the money is coming in state aid based on some enrollment count number, which would tend to be a poorer district serving a higher share of low-income and minority students," Baker said, "those districts stand to lose a lot if the state decides to follow through with using this year's enrollment counts as a basis for funding in the future."

An October 2020 report by NPR showed enrollment drops are especially noticeable in kindergarten and pre-K — the average drop was about 16 percent. Another analysis of 33 states showed that roughly 30 percent of all K-12 enrollment declines were attributable to kindergarten.

The AP and Chalkbeat’s report also corroborated this. In Wisconsin, enrollment in K-5 courses dropped by 4.92 percent.

Nationwide, no state avoided a decrease in kindergarten enrollment. Some of the largest drops were reported in other states including Hawaii, where kindergarten enrollment dropped by more than 15 percent, and Oregon, where enrollment dropped more than 14.5 percent.

Parents are instead opting to send their young children to charter schools or day care centers. As more kids go without the academic and other benefits of kindergarten, experts say, it could potentially widen educational inequities

“It all has to do with the quality of that care setting,” Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal, a University of Pittsburgh professor who studies child care and early education, told Chalkbeat. “Affluent parents can buy their way into high-quality settings, regardless of the constraints that they face, whereas families that have fewer resources have fewer choices and face very tough decisions.”