Report: US schools closing due to lower enrollment, funding

US school districts across the country reportedly are closing buildings because schools have lost more than a million students since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, causing a lack of students or money to keep them open.

Public school enrollment fell by more than 1.4 million students to 49.4 million between fall 2019 and fall 2020 — or 3 percent — according to data from the US Education Department, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

School officials say the decline in public school enrollment also is being caused by declining birthrates, an increase in home schooling, and more competition from private and charter schools, according to the Journal.

An analysis by the newspaper found that enrollment has fallen in roughly 85 of the nation's largest 100 public school districts for which data was available, with New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Fort Worth, Texas, all experiencing enrollment drops of around 10 percent.

A decline in students causes school districts to lose funding because most public schools get their money on a per-pupil basis, and a closing of a school can cause more families to leave, which can prompt greater enrollment declines and funding.

The Journal cited 16 school closings in Jefferson County, Colorado, in November; five closings in St. Paul, Minnesota, last summer; and seven closings in Oakland, California, last February because of declining enrollment and funding problems.

Districts in cities including Denver and Indianapolis have developed plans to shut down underused schools, the Journal reported, and superintendents say more closures are inevitable unless enrollment drops are reversed.

"We are subsidizing and adding funds to those schools as much as we possibly can, but it's just not sustainable," St. Paul Public Schools Superintendent Joe Gothard told the Journal.

"Nobody wants to close a school," Tracy Dorland, superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools, told the Journal, but her school board approved her plan to shut down underused campuses.

COVID-19 struck as enrollment was already dropping in many cities as a result of decreases in numbers of school-age children and the rise of other educational options such as private schools and remote lessons.

Charter school enrollment rose more than 7 percent from the 2019-20 school year to the 2020-21 school year, and then fell slightly in the 2021-22 school year to about 3.7 million students, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.