Enrollment ups and downs

It’s Kalyn Belsha and Erica Meltzer from Chalkbeat’s national desk. For the many educators, students, and parents headed back to school, we hope your first days are full of joy and learning amid the chaos. Our big story this week looks at the question that’s top of mind for school leaders and the communities they serve. How many kids are showing up to school? Keep reading for that and more education news from around the country.

The big story

With the start of the new school year underway, many school leaders have the same question on their minds: What’s going on with student enrollment? The answer has big implications for funding, staffing, and school closure decisions.

In Memphis-Shelby County Schools, new Superintendent Marie Feagins has made enrollment and attendance two of her top priorities, and she recently went door to door looking for kids who’ve yet to show up to class.

Enrollment in Tennessee’s largest school district ticked up around 1.3% over last year — with a big bump in pre-kindergarten — but fell around 2,300 students short of the district’s projections.?

Those figures come amid several shake-ups: The district recently absorbed some students who left charters that closed in a state-run turnaround program, and lost other students to a new “innovation” district run by the University of Memphis.

New York City schools are waiting to see how enrollment shakes out this year, too, after the student count rose last year for the first time in eight years. Much of that was due to the arrival of migrant students, a change that left schools scrambling to hire more bilingual staff.?

In Denver, meanwhile, district officials are about to embark on three weeks of meetings with residents to discuss declining enrollment and the district’s rationale for wanting to close smaller schools.

Even though the district has recently taken in many new migrant students, officials predict enrollment will drop another 8% by 2028, thanks to falling birth rates and high housing costs that have pushed families out of the city.

It’s unclear how many schools will close at the end of the school year, but officials intend to finalize their decisions by January. They say the goal is to make the process go more smoothly than in the past, when the timeline was full of stops and starts. But that’s left less time for community feedback.

Read more about what’s happening in Memphis, New York City, and Denver.

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Local stories to watch

• A federal investigation found Memphis-Shelby County Schools violated civil rights law in its handling of sexual harassment and assault complaints. Investigators found numerous instances of teachers and substitutes that sexually assaulted students over a three-year period, but they say the district lacked a Title IX coordinator to respond to incidents during much of that time. As part of a resolution, the district has agreed to get a coordinator, survey students, and review all sexual assault cases over the last two school years.
• Michigan continues to challenge a federal civil rights investigation that found the state violated the rights of students with disabilities during the pandemic. Federal officials say many kids did not receive the instruction and services they were entitled to, and that the state subsequently failed to provide required make-up services and gave parents and districts incorrect information. The state says it didn’t do anything wrong, and now awaits the ruling of an administrative law judge.
• More New York City students report witnessing or experiencing bullying at school than in years past. That’s a key finding from a student and educator survey, which also found more dissatisfaction among teachers with the system’s chancellor. The report comes amid debate about how to mitigate the impact of cyberbullying and social media on student mental health.
• Math scores on the new digital SAT fell so much in Colorado that the state is reconsidering how the test is used for graduation requirements. When the College Board rolled out the new test, which is structured so that students who do poorly on the first half get easier questions on the second half, officials said scores on the new and old tests should be similar. Colorado officials still aren’t sure why math scores fell so much, but they don’t want to prevent students who otherwise have met requirements from graduating.