School enrollment up in early figures
Preliminary fall numbers in Arizona show 3.5% increase over last year
After a worrying drop in elementary school students that mirrored enrollment numbers around the state, Principal Toni Reynolds wasn’t sure how many students would return this school year, the first that promised to offer a full year of in-person learning since COVID-19 hit.
But they came: 100 more students than last school year enrolled at Freedom Elementary School in Buckeye.
Reynolds was elated — and then extremely busy accommodating the rush of new students.
“But you can’t staff on what you don’t know,” Reynolds said. “We had very, very high class sizes to begin the year.”
The school was able to hire extra staff and reduce class sizes but not without some difficulty.
“We were able to find good people, but they are emergency certified,” Reynolds said. “We are providing that teacher training and student teacher experience, which takes resources and manpower to do.”
Last school year, Arizona schools saw 38,500 students fall from the rolls of schools across the state.
This year around the state, like in Freedom, more students have enrolled in schools than this time last year.
Preliminary enrollment figures shared this month by the Arizona Department of Education show schools are seeing an overall increase of 3.5% compared with this time last school year.
Those numbers are particularly high for kindergarten classes, which saw some of the biggest dips last year: There were 15.7% more students in September 2021 than September 2020.
That’s been a cause for celebration at Freedom and schools around the state.
In a news release, the Arizona Department of Education lauded the return of thousands of students, even as state officials cautioned the numbers were just an initial look.
“While these are just preliminary numbers, the trends are encouraging, and we are hopeful for a much better official enrollment count this school year compared with last year,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Hoffman said.
‘It is a challenge’
On the ground, schools are contending with a wave of issues, some exacerbated by higher-than-expected student counts. Those include widespread staff shortages, student behavior challenges and assessing the learning levels of classrooms that started the year at vastly different levels.
“It is a challenge. We already have a teacher shortage. And some of (the students) have been home for a year with little support. Then we have to close the learning gaps,” said Reynolds, whose school has used federal relief funds to create an intensive reading support program.
Still, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“We are delighted to get them back. They need to be here.”
These grades saw most increase in students
The figures shared this month by the
Department of Education are not official enrollment numbers. Instead, it is an “average daily membership” count for September, which is the total enrollment of both part- and full-time students, not including those who withdrew, for each of the first 100 or 200 days of school.
School officials said they are not comparable to enrollment or average daily membership numbers from earlier years because they were measured differently during the COVID-19 period.
Nonetheless, the figures offer a helpful first glance at how many students are enrolled in schools in Arizona, including online schools, compared to last school year. In total, the figures show 1,065,842 students enrolled this school year.
The initial number shows an overall growth of 3.5% of students this year, with the biggest growth in kindergarten students (15%), second grade (6.2%) and ninth grade (6.3%).
In absolute numbers, those preliminary figures show 5,258 more kindergartners, 4,683 more second graders and 5,490 more ninth graders.
Official enrollment figures for this school year are expected out in the spring.
While the Arizona Department of Education has said the numbers are a positive sign, some officials were more circumspect.
Gov. Doug Ducey told county school superintendents last week that student enrollment was still about 21,000 below pre-pandemic levels.
In schools and districts around Arizona, a patchwork of reports shows an overall positive enrollment trend this fall.
Peoria Unified School District in the West Valley, saw enrollment increases in kindergarten through third grade, as well as some increases in high school grades this fall. The district lost about 1,850 students from kindergarten to 12th grade last year; this year the district gained 995 students.
“Our trend is positive, and we think it’s going to continue to be positive,” said Mike Maas, the district’s director of research and planning.
At the Yuma Elementary School District, where the number of migrant families enrolled in schools tends to grow through the first part of the year, school officials have seen a district-wide growth of 3.23% from last year, but are still down 2.38% compared with the last pre-pandemic school year.
That’s 200 more students this school year, said Duane Sheppard, the district’s associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction.
In rural Cochise County, many public districts reported to the county’s school superintendent that they had seen a rise in enrollment of around 20-30% this year compared with last.
Back in metro Phoenix, Tolleson Elementary School District saw a small jump in enrollment this school year, with a growth of about 70 students.
Still, that experience wasn’t the same across the board.
Bowie Unified School District in Cochise County said its enrollment remained the same from last year. And Valley Union High School District said its enrollment was down 15% but didn’t attribute it to COVID-19, saying the district had graduated a larger class and brought in a small freshman class.
Loretto Catholic School in Douglas, in Cochise County, said it had a dip in enrollment for a different reason: It had to minimize the student capacity of each classroom for COVID-19 safety.
Meanwhile, charter schools saw an overall growth of 8,000 students from last year to this school year.
“I do think some families were open to school choice that maybe wouldn’t have otherwise,” said Jake Logan, head of the Arizona Charter School Association.
But like many district-run schools, the association said it didn’t have data on how many of the new students were missing last year or came from private schools, out of state or home schooling.
Outreach efforts bring back students
Last school year and through the summer, districts and counties all spun up student outreach programs — sending text messages, knocking on doors and planning phone calls with parents— in an effort to find young people who may have disconnected from their schools.
The Department of Education launched a statewide campaign this summer to encourage families to re-enroll, with an emphasis on bringing students back for in-person school. That effort includes an enrollment hotline, radio and TV ads, and support for families in finding housing or food aid resources.
“We knew we needed a strategy to support student enrollment efforts happening at the local level,” Hoffman said in the release sharing the preliminary student numbers for this year. “A statewide effort was needed to re-engage students and families — and these preliminary student count numbers show signs of success. While these are just preliminary numbers, the trends are encouraging, and we are hopeful for a much better official enrollment count this school year compared with last year.”
Another program called the Urban Recruitment Project, an effort modeled on the statewide Migrant Education Program, worked to find students in Mesa Public Schools who had fallen out of touch with schools.
By going door-to-door and contacting over 1,000 families, recruiters found families that had moved in with other families, where teenagers were working or struggling to get online. And they were able to assess their needs, like information about credit recovery or support from a counselor.
“The feedback we got from recruiters was (families) were happy to see someone reaching out,” said Laura Alvarez, the state’s deputy associate superintendent of unique populations. “It was very impactful.”
And efforts to stay in contact during the pandemic also helped districts and schools build strong ties that officials say continue to this day. In Cochise County, Superintendent of Schools Jacqui Clay began to convene weekly phone calls with district-run schools, but also charter networks and private schools, and health officials.
What began as a place to pass along urgent information became a space of support. Clay has continued to convene a regular Zoom call for school leaders to talk to health officials and share best practices on COVID-19 mitigation policies or contacting parent.
“It became an ‘us’ issue, not a ‘they’ issue,” said Clay of the efforts to encourage trust in parents who may have been uncertain about bringing students back to school. “We all feel that we are all responsible for these kids.”
“We are delighted to get them back. They need to be here.” Toni Reynolds
Familiar challenges mark a new school year
Districts welcoming back a larger student body this year are focused on filling staff shortages and assessing student learning after a difficult year.
Tolleson Elementary District hired a new kindergarten teacher and paraprofessionals to keep student classroom counts relatively small.
Yuma Elementary School District used a round of its federal relief funding to retain all staff members, which has allowed some stability around the school culture. Where the district has had to increase its staff investment is its online school, which grew from an average of 15 students pre-pandemic to around 150 students this year.
And districts are also actively developing their practices to support student learning this year, particularly for those who faced disruption last school year.
Peoria used summer school to pinpoint which students may need extra support this year. The district found virtual learning worked well for some students but not at all for others.
“What we have really seen is a wider range of students coming to the classroom in the younger grades,” Maas said.
At Freedom, the school is focusing on intensive reading support. Struggling students will have 30 minutes in the morning where, after being broken into groups based on reading levels, they work with a reading specialist, teacher or paraprofessional. That is funded in part by federal coronavirus aid money, while a teacher development program the school will run this year gets money from the state-led Project Momentum grants.
Still, even as districts are in a new period, the effects of the pandemic still affect many families.
Alvarez, who works with Arizona students who are homeless, in foster care or from migrant families, said the state’s homeless population has increased, and more families are doubling up.
“There are some families that are still experiencing the effect of the pandemic and will continue to face those challenges.”