![]() Those, too, are the regions with the largest drops in overall school enrollment. And there are hybrid charter schools combining independent study at home with classroom learning at schools like The Classical Academies in northern San Diego County.Ĭharter school enrollment declined the most this year in the areas that for decades have been the strongholds of charter schools: the Bay Area, down 3.6%, Los Angeles County and the San Diego area, both off 3.1%. There are emerging forms like small, private homeschools in pods and through church co-ops that are hard to quantify. The pandemic “supercharged these broader demographic trends – the crashing birth rate, the negative rate of immigration, the transfer (of families) into rural and suburban areas, the political dissatisfaction in red areas where people are leaving for Texas, Arizona or Idaho,” she said.Īnd, she said, Covid has produced a “multiverse” of education options that affect schools and districts: Enrollment in private schools is up, as are parents’ applications for homeschooling. Covid-19 has been a storm that has upended district and charter schools alike, said Castrejón. The parallel enrollment drop wasn’t coincidental. But this year, enrollment in TK-12 school districts and charter schools both fell 1.8%: 110,000 students in district schools, 12,600 in charter schools, as measured as of Census Day last October.Įxclude all virtual charter schools, a small subset of charter schools, and enrollment in classroom-based charter schools, the most common form, fell 2.9%, exceeding district schools’ one-year decline, according to an EdSource analysis. In 2020-21, the first full year of the pandemic, total enrollment statewide fell 4.4% while charter school enrollment actually increased 3.4%. Independent, nonprofit boards run most of them, with some under the control of school districts that set them up. “If I’m a charter management organization, and I’m struggling with 30% turnover in teachers, fluctuating enrollment, and I’m dedicating resources that I don’t even have any idea if I’m going to be reimbursed by the state, why would I be thinking about fighting a political fight to get a charter petition into LAUSD?” said Myrna Castrejón, president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association.Ībout 1 in 9 of California’s 5.9 million public school students attend a charter school, which are public schools freed from some regulations imposed on traditional school districts. All of that gives them pause about expanding. They and districts face the same headwinds: an immediate teacher and staff shortage, rising chronic absences, huge questions about enrollment next year and long-term projections of a double-digit decline statewide over the next decade.īut charter schools say they also face potential legal roadblocks, anti-charter antagonism and financial burdens, including uncertainty over how much funding they’ll receive this year under a state budget that left them vulnerable to funding cuts. Charter school leaders say they have been consumed with keeping schools open, and have put off thinking about growing again. This was to have been a year of school recovery, but instead has been turbulent, buffeted by waves of Covid infections. Rose Ciotta, EdSource investigations and projects editor Willis, data analyst Andrew Reed, social media Shannon Tilton, web designer and Justin Allen, web developer.įor more on this series and data showing changes in each region of the state, go to California’s Enrollment Rollercoaster. ![]() Produced by John Fensterwald, reporter Yuxuan Xie, data visualization specialist Daniel J. This is the second of five pieces in an occasional series on the dramatic shifts in California K-12 enrollment over the last two decades and through the pandemic. ![]() Eyes on the Early Years Newsletter Archive.Local Control Funding Formula Explained.California’s Homeless Students: Undercounted, Underfunded And Growing.Full Circle: California Schools Work To Transform Discipline.Tainted Taps: Lead puts California Students at Risk.Education during Covid: California families struggle to learn.College And Covid: Freshman Year Disrupted.Adjuncts’ gig economy at CA community colleges.California’s Community Colleges: At a Crossroads.A town’s library fight spotlights inequities.
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