What led to Utah’s K-12 enrollment dropping for the first time in 20 yearshttps://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2020/09/23/utah-schools-enrolled/?The coronavirus pandemic has caused a shift that hasn’t been seen in Utah’s public schools in 20 years: The number of students enrolled has declined.
Some parents have started home-schooling their kids. Others have opted to keep their 5-year-olds out of kindergarten for now. As a result of those and other decisions, the state’s anticipated 7,000 increase in students this fall evaporated. In reality, the school population is instead down roughly 2,000.
A change like this, even if it is temporary, has huge ramifications.
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The enrollment numbers dictate how much money districts get each year from the state. Put simply, fewer students means less funding. And with a drop as big as this year’s, that could mean losing millions of dollars for public school districts.
Practically forcing parents to see what their kids are being taught and to play a big part in their instructional time is going to change things for years to come. Not an explosive change, necessarily, but it will be significant.
Stepping back a bit, this article points out the half-truth in the narrative that homeschooling takes $$ away from schools. It does, in the sense and to the degree that a particular PS receives $$ based on attendance.
HOWEVER, homeschooling parents still pay taxes, and that $$ still is available to states'/counties'/cities' schools. A homeschooled student also is not consuming a PS' resources.
