The decline in Alabama’s public school enrollment is worse than originally thought.
Official numbers show 5,800 fewer students this year – a loss of less than 1% of last year’s total, but one of the state’s largest year-over-year losses in decades.
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The final enrollment of 714, 400 students slightly exceeds earlier estimates. Superintendent Eric Mackey said Monday that while officials hoped the preliminary figure of about 5,700 fewer students would shrink as final verifications were completed, it instead grew.
As Alabama Daily News recently reported, about 3,000 of those students are using CHOOSE Act education savings accounts to attend private schools this year. But officials are still trying to determine where roughly 2,800 other students went.
“I do think that a number of those students may have gone to homeschool but did not report it that way to their school of enrollment,” Mackey said. “But I can’t say that for sure.”
Homeschool law
Alabama’s homeschool law has few requirements beyond notifying local school officials. Unlike some states, Alabama no longer requires families to join a homeschool “cover school,” a rule repealed in 2015.
Initially, Mackey said he heard from superintendents that many of the missing students were Hispanic, but told ADN Monday that the state actually gained 300 Hispanic students from last year to this year.
While most public school districts lost students, two segments – charter and virtual schools – saw enrollment increases. “The three fastest-growing school systems by far were Limestone County, Eufaula City and Chickasaw City,” Mackey said. “And those were virtual school students.”
Impact
The lower enrollment will affect next year’s school funding, but Mackey said the projected number of teacher jobs at risk has dropped from 700 to about 500.
Because losses were spread statewide, he doesn’t expect layoffs.
“What that tells me is that while we have 45,000 to 50,000 teachers, if we lose 500 units, that will be easily absorbed through attrition,” he said.
In smaller districts, though, even a few fewer teaching units can make it hard to keep schools fully staffed.
“There will be impacts,” Mackey added. “We’ve got to figure out how to move people around and make changes, but we’re not talking about massive layoffs across the state.”
School consolidations
Districts with sustained declines may eventually face school consolidations.
“One of the reasons systems end up in trouble is because they’re operating too many sites,” Mackey said.
Three districts are currently under state intervention – Sumter County, Dallas County and Bessemer City — and the state has already closed schools in Sumter and Dallas counties because of declining enrollment.
The Alabama Department of Education on Monday (Oct. 20) released its annual per-district average daily membership data for the current school year, which measures the average number of students enrolled during the 20 school days following Labor Day.
An Alabama Daily News analysis found that overall trends mirror prior years: Black Belt districts again saw losses, though declines were widespread across most of the state.
The two largest districts – Mobile and Jefferson counties – saw the biggest losses in raw numbers. Mobile lost just under 1,000 students and Jefferson just over 1,000, about 2% and 3% of each district’s enrollment, respectively.
Mackey said both districts are actively searching for missing students. “They’re sending out counselors and social workers and registrars trying to identify students,” he said. “But in many cases, the students move, so the address we have on file is not correct anymore. It’s just hard to locate them.”
ADN was unable to reach Mobile or Jefferson County officials for comment.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Trisha Powell Crain and originally published by Alabama Daily News.
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