Mar 9, 2022
LA Sees Drop in Public-School Enrollment Persisting Through 2024
Bloomberg News
,(Bloomberg) -- The Los Angeles Unified School District expects that a sharp decline in enrollment during the pandemic will continue for at least the next couple of years, according to official estimates.
Total enrollment at the nation’s second-largest system declined an average of 5% over the past two years. It’s expected to fall 4.2% in 2022-23 from a year earlier, and by another 4.4% in 2023-24, Chief Financial Officer David Hart said in a presentation to the board on Tuesday. The projection at the start of the pandemic in spring 2020 was for a 2.7% decline.
About 437,000 K-12 students are registered, and the district has a budget of $12.1 billion, according to its Open Data Dashboard.
Fewer enrolled students are showing up to learn, according to Hart. Average daily attendance has fallen, by a conservative estimate, to 90%, compared with a “fairly reliable” 95% in recent years, he said. California bases its school funding on attendance, though a movement is afoot to switch to an enrollment-based model.
A 100-day plan being formulated by newly appointed Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who previously headed Miami-Dade County Public Schools, will explore reasons for the decline -- including which parts of the city and types of students are the most at risk, said Hart.
(Updates with Open Data enrollment figures in third paragraph)
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