‘We continually make adjustments’

State’s school districts grapple with affects of declining enrollment

Enrollment numbers have fallen by a preliminary average of 3 percent in public schools across the state and education officials say they believe the pandemic is to blame.

But while officials say the decline in enrollment is not unexpected based on demographic trends and as a response to the pandemic, they note declining numbers of students also will not impact every school district the same way, including operationally, how many students are being home-schooled, and in terms of funding through the Education

Cost Sharing grant.

No district should expect to see the way they are funded to crater significantly, because of the way the state funding formula is structured to emphasize the magnitude of student need, as well as enrollment numbers, said Michael Morton, deputy executive director of the School and State Finance Project, a non-profit that analyzes state funding data.

Morton said the decline in enrollment follows statewide trends is not a tremendous sur

In Danbury, another Alliance District, school enrollment was projected to increase by 7.1 percent over 10 years starting in 2020 — including growth in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten — raising concerns about overcrowding in district schools. In aggregate, however, Danbury enrolled 179 fewer pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students this year compared to last. Overall enrollment fell by 100 students.

prise to him, but the possibility that educational inequities will be exacerbated as a result is high, including because long-term education impacts of this past year are not yet known.

Lower district enrollment will provide a level of unpredictability for urban school funding especially, he said.

“Students in Connecticut’s highest-need districts do not have the same opportunities as students in Connecticut’s wealthiest, suburban....districts,” Morton said.

Officials from Alliance Districts, the state’s districts with the highest needs, also said they are not surprised by the preliminary enrollment counts.

“We expect this year’s enrollment decrease to be an anomaly due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Sharon Beadle, a spokeswoman for Stamford Public Schools, an Alliance District where enrollment fell 1.9 percent this year.

“More families may have opted to provide home instruction to their children or to send their children to private schools due to the pandemic,” Beadle said.

The drop in enrollment also runs counter to what some school districts were expecting in their projections. Stamford’s enrollment had grown by about 600 students between 2014-2015 and 2019-2020, although its preliminary enrollment fell by 317 students this year.

Different experiences

Morton said one challenge for Alliance Districts — of which the state has more than 30 — may be increasing costs associated with the pandemic, but once the worst has past.

“The students we do have had an entirely different learning experience since March than they’ve had in their entire lives, and we need to know how to respond best to that and with what resources,” he said.

“We don’t really have a great idea of how much the pandemic has impacted students in terms of what they’ve retained and their academic levels, and also more importantly their general welfare and health and what it’s going to take in terms of resources to address those challenges,” he said. “That’s a big unknown.”

“It’s difficult to know how much money is needed or where the resources are going to need to be put because no one has ever dealt with this before,” Morton said.

Whether the drop in enrollment will have an impact on school operations — the sorts of programs school districts offer, the number of teachers in buildings, the in-school supports and after-school extracurriculars — is now something some school districts have begun to calculate.

As noted by Morton, enrollment is one of the crucial metrics for public schools because of the role it plays in how state funding is disbursed based on the state’s formula.

State officials said they have had initial talks about actions they may take if falling enrollment continues to be a problem in school districts.

Peter Yazbak, spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Education, said state education officials are in talks with state Office of Policy and Management officials about the possibility of “holding districts harmless” for the Education Cost Sharing grant — a legal term meaning districts would be waived of responsibility if they do not meet certain enrollment benchmarks that would prevent them from receiving additional funding.

“(N)o decision has been reached as of yet” on whether districts will receive their full ECS grant funding, he said.

In New Haven, which receives about $160 million in ECS funding, according to the School and State Finance Project, preliminary numbers show that public school enrollment fell by 628 students from last year, a 3 percent drop, on track with the state’s average — but New Haven has not had in-person learning since March, with very limited exceptions.

“If all districts had the same model of fully in-person, the attendance (data) probably would have been different,” said Tracey. “However, this would have been problematic for some districts that have spacing issues to accommodate 6 (foot) distancing.”

Still, Tracey said that none of the district’s programs are at stake yet because of falling enrollment. For the first time in years, New Haven school officials are projecting a year-end surplus — this largely owing to cost savings associated with keeping buildings closed during the pandemic.

New Haven Federation of Teachers President Dave Cicarella said that if enrollment continues to trend down “it will have a ripple effect.”

“Places like New Haven and the priority districts live off federal and state money,” he said. “Without money, those programs dry up.”

New Haven Board of Education member Darnell Goldson said the drop student population is a trend that has occurred over several years and he is “not concerned if it follows a natural decrease in city population.”

However, he said, “Our job is not to try to increase student censuses in order to bring in additional funding, but instead to adequately educate the children we do have.”

No rush to adjust

Some school district leaders also say the pandemic has shuffled a number of students around, leading to unexpected enrollment trends. In Greater New Haven, for example, several officials believe the decision of the New Haven school board not to open the school buildings was felt throughout the region.

“My biggest concern, and I’ve expressed it to the state’s Department of Education, that having districts doing their own plans is going to have an impact on all of us,” said West Haven Superintendent of Schools Neil Cavallaro.

Some school district leaders said balancing enrollment can be a challenge educators expect every year.

“We continually make adjustments, but we feel really good about where we are, the offerings we have and the direction we are going as a district,” said Geen Thazhampallath, director of talent and benefits for Middletown Public Schools, where enrollment dropped by 4.6 percent — from 4,620 to 4,409 since last year.

“Enrollment often fluctuates over time and year to year so it's hard to speak to a momentary snapshot in time,” Thazhampallath said.

Thazhampallath said the demagnetization of Thomas Edison Middle School, a Meriden magnet school, and the opening of a new middle school in the city likely means a number of Middletown resident students enrolled in Meriden schools will return to their home district next year.

Will Clark, the chief operating officer for Waterbury Public Schools, said that enrollment fell short of projections, especially in the youngest grades, but system leaders do not expect to take immediate action.

“From a capacity standpoint we are confident of our ability to adjust to the needs and expand and contract grade levels as needed,” he said.

Region 6 and Litchfield Public Schools Superintendent Chris Leone said his district continues “to monitor enrollment patterns and fluctuation during an uncertain year as we head into the budget season.” In Litchfield, enrollment dropped 7.8 percent this year, according to preliminary numbers.

Younger students

One of the most concerning statistics for school districts is that more than 50 percent of the state’s decline in enrollment is concentrated in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, the youngest grades. If schools can’t enroll more students from the classes of 2033 and 2034, it means lower enrollment totals could plague them for years.

In New Haven, where school board members eliminated a child care program that provided extended hours before and after the school day — a benefit to working parents in New Haven and also other towns who accessed the district through its magnet program — the number of pre-kindergarten students enrolled in the district plummeted by 176. In kindergarten, the number of enrolled students fell by 285.

It has been a boon to West Haven’s pre-kindergarten enrollment, where a large number of parents had relied on New Haven’s system for child care. Although the system was initially projected to lose 17 pre-kindergarten students, the district now reports a 60 student increase. However, West Haven’s Cavallaro said it comes with increased costs to the district because of special education needs.

“We must find additional space to house the (special education) classes, hire additional teachers and support staff, and purchase the specialized equipment needed to educate those students. While we realize we are obligated to educate those with special needs, cost is a growing concern,” he said.

At home

Education officials at the state and local levels say they are hearing from some parents of young children that they are looking out for their children’s safety and educational well-being during the pandemic by pulling them from public schools for the year.

According to state officials, the number of students who left public schools for home-schooling in

2019-2020 was 547; as of November, that number for this year was

3,571.

Carrie Keogh, a New Haven mother, made the decision to enroll her daughter in a parochial school when she learned the school district would not be opening its doors to students. Keogh enrolled her daughter in first grade at St. Rita’s School, a Catholic school in Hamden.

“When the schools closed in March we received very little support. I only got three telephone calls from her teacher from between March and the end of school in June. I did all the homeschooling with her at the dining room table,” she said. “I knew if we got into the situation again with New Haven Public Schools I was afraid I wouldn’t have the support I needed if they stayed on remote.”

Although Keogh’s daughter was enrolled at Edgewood School, which is not an interdistrict magnet school, she is one of hundreds of parents who have exited the system since last year.

“All year long, with everything going on, parents are finding themselves having to make decisions to suit their family,” said Diane Connors, founder of the Connecticut Homeschool Network. “That could be temporary, it could be for a year. Some are intending to send their kids back. It’s not that they’re upset with the school system, it’s that they have to do what they have to do.”

Connors said she was recently in contact with four families looking for assistance and guidance as they considered making a transition to homeschooling, and she ordinarily expects a surge in late December when schools are in recess.

The biggest issue for many homeschooling families is timing and scheduling, she said. Although homeschooling can be offered online in a similar fashion to the remote learning used by many school districts, it can be difficult to assist a learning child when they are on the school’s schedule and not the parent’s or student’s schedule.

“With home education, you can control when you do your academics,” she said.

New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said he suspects much of New Haven’s decline is due to magnet school students returning to their home districts for in-person education and parents of young children delaying their child’s education because of the pandemic. However, he said city government must work to make the city a more affordable place to live if enrollment is going to stay level or increase in future years.

He said he hopes the state can recognize that much of the drop in enrollment is a temporary impact of the virus and that municipal aid is not lowered as a result.