Enrollment at CPS drops by 10K students

Long-standing trend that began in 2003 continues

Chicago Public Schools this fall recorded one of the sharpest single-year enrollment declines since the district’s student population began a steady downturn 16 years ago.

The 361,314 students counted on the 20th day of classes this fall represents a reduction of 10,000 students from last school year.

That’s a slightly smaller drop than two years ago, when enrollment plummeted by about 11,000 students from the preceding year. The numbers continue a long-standing trend that began in 2003, when total enrollment stood at 434,000.

While declining enrollment isn’t new, the latest numbers highlight the challenge of managing supply and demand in a changing city that’s home to some of the state’s topperforming schools as well as under-resourced campuses that struggle to offer basic programs. Years of falling enrollment, school expansion and choice patterns have left CPS with tens of thousands of surplus classroom seats, leading officials to consider investing in even more programs to stem losses in South and West side neighborhoods.

Unlike in previous years, there will be less of an impact on the budgets of schools that saw enrollment declines. CPS opted this year to base school budgets on enrollment counts from last school year instead of this year’s 20th day of classes.

“The district’s improved financial position means we can support growing schools and invest more in schools where enrollment is declining with funds specifically designed to support schools that are underenrolled,” CPS CEO Janice Jackson said in a statement.

Elementary school enrollment dropped this year by about 7,000 students, while enrollment at charter and district-run prekindergarten programs also fell, by 1,773 students. High school enrollment totaled about 73,000 students and declined by just 402 from last year.

But many sparsely populated high schools continue to suffer from chronic enrollment shortages as thousands of students leave their neighborhoods to attend schools elsewhere in the city.

At least 62 buildings with high school grades had fewer than 270 students enrolled, according to district statistics. Under the district’s model per-student funding method, officials say, schools with that level of enrollment cannot offer a competitive education.

Hope High School, a South Side building that’s being phased out by CPS, had 22 students. Douglass High School on the West Side had 62 students, according to the district’s official head count. Harper High School, which also is under a gradual shutdown plan, had 87 students. Hirsch High School had 103 students.

Some blame an overabundance of choices.

“My personal opinion is the overproliferation of underperforming charter schools to compete with the pool of students that would normally feed into Hirsch has not just decimated the school itself, but the community at large,” said Maria Owens, an attorney who serves on Hirsch’s Local School Council. “Here’s the problem. You keep hearing from the (school) board that there are no students, there are no parents and there are no families in the Grand Crossing community. Not so. The families are there.”

A CPS analysis developed with a city education reform group and released last month concluded that slightly less than 60 percent of CPS elementary students and fewer than a quarter of high school students attend the school that is automatically assigned to them based on where they live.

In a South Side region that includes Hirsch’s campus, CPS found only that 10 percent of high school students attend their assigned neighborhood school. A third of students who study elsewhere travel more than 6 miles to get to class.

District officials continue to blame falling enrollment on demographic changes such as declining birthrates and slowing immigration trends. CPS also asserts that nearly 90 percent of students who are eligible to attend school in Chicago choose to attend schools within the district.

As certain schools continue to shrink, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration has launched a new process that will have existing schools apply to add programs such as International Baccalaureate or fine arts to their curriculum.

And in accordance with state law made effective during the summer, the Chicago Board of Education this week approved a policy that requires the district to consider bolstering underenrolled schools with new attendance boundaries, programs or rental agreements with outside groups.

Officials also have taken their analysis on the road, organizing community meetings to present enrollment trends and patterns in each city region amid growing consensus that Chicago’s government is preparing to embark on another round of school closings.

“A lot of kids are going to charter schools, but most of them leave their zoned school to go to another neighborhood school in a different community that they perceive to be a better option for them,” Jackson told residents gathered at a West Side high school earlier this month.

“We need to know why, and we need to know how we make the case that a kid has access to a high-quality school within their community. If they choose to travel outside their community, great. But we want to make sure that they have that option within their community,” she said.

CPS said 249 district-run schools that saw enrollment gains received a combined $15.5 million in extra funding.

But 54 schools that requested “funding advances” based on anticipated enrollment growth that didn’t materialize will lose a combined $3.2 million. The district said the cuts “resulted in no position reductions.” CPS also set aside a total of $15 million for dozens of school that have suffered sharp enrollment declines and struggle to provide a basic education.

Such changes and plans, though, don’t comfort one of Hirsch’s Local School Council members.

“We don’t mind putting police on the ground to arrest students who are being underserved,” Owens said. “We don’t seem to have a problem allowing other communities to be funded while the Greater Grand Crossing community goes without. But we do have a great deal of things to say when things go wrong. And that’s not fair.”