Plunge in school enrollment is coming, but is California in denial?

Folks just aren’t birthing as many babies in California as they used to.

This has serious ramifications for dinosaurs like me, with Social Security and all, but also for one of California’s mightiest industries: education, particularly K-12 education.

Not having as many babies means not having as many students. Which means you don’t need as many teachers. Or schools. Or cafeteria workers, counselors, bus drivers, custodians, etc.

The greatest plunge has hit the greater Los Angeles area, which includes Orange and Ventura counties. School enrollment dropped 15% between 2012 and 2022, and new projections by the Public Policy Institute of California say it will plunge another 15% by 2031. That’s a devastating 30% drop.

The Bay Area — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma counties — has fared better. Enrollment there has dropped 7%, and will shrink another 8% by 2031, for a total decline of 15%.

In the Inland Empire — Riverside and San Bernardino counties  — enrollment shrank just 2%, and will drop another 4% by 2031, for a total of 6%.

The only regions of the Golden State that can expect growth between now and 2031 are the northern Central Valley (up 4%), and the Sierra (up 1%).

“State policy efforts to address enrollment declines will need to carefully consider regional implications,” write the PPIC’s Julien Lafortune and Emmanuel Prunty. “Where declines have already happened, continued losses may cause more difficulties; by 2031, some regions of the state will have experienced 20-year declines of 20% or greater, amplifying pressures to close schools and find other cost-saving measures.

“But efforts to ease the financial burdens of declining districts could have unintended consequences. In particular, they could end up redistributing state funding from inland to coastal regions, where declines are expected to be larger. State fiscal actions will need to carefully balance student needs across districts experiencing a wide variety of enrollment trends, from growth to decline.”

Note that those coastal areas are, by and large, a lot wealthier than their inland cousins.

Missing kindergarteners

The researchers found that the losses are concentrated in the earliest grades — kindergarten and first, suggesting that pandemic-era shifts away from public schools may persist.

People are also leaving California for other states, in part due to shifting work patterns and affordability concerns.

“More generally, these declines presage fiscal challenges,” they write. “As districts lose students — and as one-time federal stimulus funding comes to an end and state revenues decline — difficult downsizing decisions will become necessary.”

This is not news to the California Department of Education.

As it turns out, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond hosted a webinar on Tuesday, May 23, “to assist school districts in building strategies to counter declining enrollment.”

That included “examples of best practices that school districts may be able to use to offset declining enrollment,” including expanding dual-language immersion programs and Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) academies “to attract parents and families back to California schools.” It also suggested marketing strategies for schools “to increase engagement and boost enrollment.”

There’s hope that free and subsidized preschool for 3- and 4-year-old students, free breakfast and lunch programs and ongoing efforts to ensure students learn to read by third grade will help as well.

The CDE wants to hear other folks’ ideas. School districts can share examples of their work to offset declining enrollment by emailing enrollment@cde.ca.gov.

Reality?

Now, all that’s well and good. Beefing up educational offerings like dual-language and STEAM programs is always a good idea.

But, unless I’m missing something big, that won’t manufacture babies.

The fundamental problem seems to lie in declining birth rates. They’re near their lowest level in a century here in the Golden State — from a peak of 613,000 in 1992 to 420,000 in 2021, according to the PPIC’s crunch of state data.

“California has recovered from low birth rates in the past, most recently through higher birth rates among immigrants,” the PPIC’s Hans Johnson wrote. “But immigration has declined dramatically, and birth rates in sending countries — most importantly Mexico — have also plummeted. Across most developed countries in the world, birth rates have remained persistently low and below replacement levels for decades.”

Some sobering stats that go hand-in-hand: Statewide student enrollment in 2012 was 6.2 million. PPIC projects it will be 5.4 million in 2031.

Los Angeles County had 1.6 million students in 2012, and is expected to have 1.1 million in 2031. Orange County had 501,000 in 2012, and is projected to have 404,000 in 2031. In Riverside County, the drop is expected to be from 426,000 to 407,000, while in San Bernardino County, it’s expected to be from 412,000 to 382,000.

It just doesn’t seem that there’s much the CDE or anyone else can do about declining birth rates and the resulting declining enrollment in the long run, except prepare.

The hard work, especially in the Los Angeles-Orange County area, will be deciding which schools to keep open and how to most effectively pare down staff to deal with reality while ensuring that kids get the very best education possible. Families must have a real chance to participate in the decision-making, but it’s going to be messy.

People hate when their neighborhood schools close. Unless there’s a sudden baby boom, though, it’s what awaits. Here’s hoping that state educators are planning for that reality as actively as they’re planning for new dual-immersion programs.

Source: Orange County Register