The Delta Issue #110
Enrollment Is Falling. Here’s How Leaders Can Get Ahead of It.
Subscribe to The Delta on Spotify or Apple Podcasts for more conversations like this.
Hi y’all, Jessica here.
K–12 public school enrollment dropped by nearly a million students between 2019 and 2024, part of what some have called the “Big Shrink.” The factors that got us here—from declining birth rates to the rise of school choice and different schooling options—also tell us enrollment is likely to keep falling.
The really hard part is that districts have fewer kids and fewer dollars, but they’re still trying to run the same number of schools. When you’re spending limited dollars to heat, staff, and maintain buildings that are half-full, there’s less to spend on the things that make school better for kids and teachers, like sports, arts, advanced courses, support staff, and more.
We’ve written before about why declining enrollment is going to make conversations about school closures, unfortunately, more common. This week, we’re focusing on how leaders can get ahead of these decisions before they become a crisis.
I sat down with my longtime friend Gabriela Fighetti , Managing Partner at Civic Solutions Group , who has been on just about every side of this work. We got really practical about what leaders should be doing now: how early to start planning, when consolidation needs to be on the table, how to bring communities along, and what states can do to help districts get ahead of a crisis.
Watch the first 15 minutes of our conversation below.
Want to keep watching? Check out the full conversation here, or listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
The transcript below has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Jessica:
To help us think through how leaders can respond to declining enrollment in ways that ultimately serve students better—I’m joined by my longtime friend and colleague Gabriela Fighetti , Managing Partner at Civic Solutions Group .
Gaby has spent her career helping public school systems navigate enrollment and facilities planning, including leading student enrollment for Louisiana’s Recovery School District and NOLA Public Schools and, before that, working on portfolio planning, facilities, and enrollment projections at the New York City Department of Education. Gaby, thanks so much for joining me.
Gaby
Happy to be here.
Jessica
You’ve spent years helping school systems think about enrollment, and today you’re working with districts across the country navigating these challenges firsthand. How widespread is enrollment decline, and what’s driving it?
Gaby
We’re seeing it everywhere from Massachusetts to Texas. Birth rates are probably the largest driver. Districts are seeing smaller kindergarten cohorts coming in. They might graduate 3,000 12th graders, but the incoming kindergarten class is 500 students smaller.
Urban districts are being hit harder than some suburban districts, and some states are feeling it more than others. But there aren’t many communities where this isn’t becoming a pain point.
Jessica
What happens when districts lose significant numbers of students but continue operating the same number of schools and buildings?
Gaby
At first, sometimes nothing happens. You might not feel the impact for a few years, but over time, it compounds.
Districts are funded based on the number of students they enroll, so when enrollment drops, funding drops. Districts might initially reach into their fund balances to maintain the same number of buildings and staff. But eventually, they have to start cutting.
And we’re not talking about raising the thermostat one degree. We’ve worked with districts facing $40 million budget deficits. You’re talking about cutting support staff in middle schools, getting rid of elementary arts programs, or limiting sports. Those cuts go deep, and they affect the things that bring kids and teachers to school every day.
Jessica
So if districts are looking at consistently empty classrooms and half-full buildings, how do leaders know when they’ve reached the point where closing or consolidating schools needs to be on the table?
Gaby
School closure is hard. It’s one of the hardest things a board member or superintendent is asked to do, and it’s hard on communities. So we see a lot of districts kick the can down the road as long as they can. By the time they act, the cuts are deep and the actions they need to take are really dramatic.
When that kindergarten cohort starts shrinking, every superintendent should be forecasting what that means for enrollment and the budget five years from now. If building utilization starts creeping below 80%, you should be talking about what that means and starting to think about how you need to reimagine your district.
Too often, districts make cuts every year—a teaching position here, an opportunity for kids there. That’s a rational response if you’re treating declining enrollment as this year’s problem.
Instead, leaders need to step back and ask:
- What opportunities do we want kids to have?
- What will it take to provide them? How many buildings do we need?
- And if we operate fewer buildings, what could we invest back into the experiences we want for teachers, students, and families?
That requires a sustained, collaborative vision for what the district needs to become. District leaders already have enormous jobs, so I understand the temptation to kick the can down the road and hope the kids come back. But you can’t enroll a kindergartner who was never born. If you’re not talking about this early and often, you’re going to get caught on your heels.
Jessica
You’ve been through versions of this in New York and New Orleans. What did those experiences teach you about what leaders should—and shouldn’t—do?
Gaby
When school closures go badly, they tend to fall into one of two camps.
- Decisions are made by a small group of leaders behind closed doors. Everything is kept close, and leaders take a command-and-control approach because they think the community will never like the decision anyway.
- In the other, there’s extensive public dialogue, but the goals are hard to measure and there’s no clear path to a decision. The conversation can go on forever because leaders hope they can eventually get to a place where everyone is happy.
The truth is, it’s too much to expect communities to be happy about these decisions. What we can expect is that people understand how we got here.
Leaders need to:
- Be incredibly transparent about the data and where the district stands today.
- Bring communities along in defining where they’re trying to go and give people a role in shaping what comes next: What matters most for their children? What do they want from their schools?
- Build scenarios and recommendations that move toward that vision, even if that means hard changes, including closures or consolidations.
All of this requires radical candor, transparency about the data and decision-making, and sticking to a clear process and timeline. That’s uncomfortable when you’re sitting in the hot seat, but the only way out is through, and the only way through is with your community.
Jessica
Let’s get really practical. If you’re a district leader realizing your kindergarten class has been shrinking year after year, where do you start? What data should you actually be looking at?
Gaby
You have to be methodical about understanding building utilization and building condition. Those give you a basis of truth from which to have these conversations.
For utilization, you need to understand how many students a building can actually serve: How many teaching stations are there? How many students can those classrooms hold? Which spaces are art rooms, music rooms, or administrative spaces and shouldn’t count toward capacity?
Building condition matters, too. Old buildings are expensive to maintain. Chillers break. Windows and roofs need to be replaced. These are high-ticket capital expenses.
Leaders need to understand which buildings are nearing the end of their useful life and be transparent about how much they’re investing just to keep those buildings warm, dry, and safe.
Sometimes those buildings have the deepest community ties and are the hardest to lose. But that makes it even more important to make the tradeoffs public. What does it cost to keep that building in the system? Could students and teachers have a better experience in a newer building with better labs, gyms, auditoriums, or other spaces?
These things should be talked about at board meetings, and staff, leaders, boards, and communities should understand them.
Jessica
Where have you seen leaders do this well—where a closure or consolidation ultimately resulted in something better for students?
Gaby
Aldine, Texas, is one example. Under LaTonya M. Goffney ‘s leadership, the district has navigated really steep enrollment declines, and we worked with the team for about three years on what we called optimization.
Three years in, we’re seeing higher attendance among students in their new schools. We saw high staff retention, including among staff who had to move, because of the work the district did to make sure people felt supported through the transition. And there are early indications that students who moved into higher-quality schools are performing better on state assessments.
Cleveland is another example. Warren Morgan, EdD and his team recently went through a significant right-sizing, and I’ve been really impressed by how clearly they communicated both where the district was demographically and financially and what they were committing to families on the other side.
They made commitments about the sports students would have access to in every school and the elective opportunities available to middle and high school students—things that actually change kids’ day-to-day experiences.
That doesn’t mean everyone is happy. Families and staff can still feel a deep sense of loss. But the goal is to give kids better opportunities and then actually reinvest the savings in the experiences you’re promising them.
Jessica
These decisions ultimately happen locally, but this is becoming a much bigger systems issue. What role should states and state chiefs play?
Gaby
I think about it similarly to the role states play with high-quality instructional materials: Don’t make every district reinvent the wheel.
States can play two really critical roles.
- First, they create the policy conditions that incentivize districts to act. Financial or academic performance flags can trigger intervention and give district leaders both an incentive and some cover to make difficult decisions. Board members and superintendents can really use that cover.
- Second, states can be vetters of expertise. Why should every district have to go out on its own and figure out who can help it navigate closures and consolidations? States can vet strong technical-assistance providers, make that support available to districts, and potentially even pay for it when districts choose to take on this work.
This isn’t about states reaching down into communities and deciding which schools should close. That’s the last thing I would suggest. It’s about giving districts the conditions, cover, and tools to make these decisions well themselves.
Jessica
I think that’s increasingly important because if states don’t lean into this, declining enrollment and financial crises can start to crowd out the academic priorities they’re trying to advance. It’s hard to talk about improving instruction when a district is laying off teachers and eliminating support staff.
And as you’ve said, this isn’t isolated. Public schools are going to look different 15 years from now by necessity.
So let’s end with this: Whether someone is a district leader or a state leader, what’s the one thing you hope they do after this conversation?
Gaby
Start helping people understand where you are.
Enrollment decline, the financial situation, and the relationship between the two should be part of the conversation at every board meeting. You can’t expect people to understand why you’re considering closing schools if they don’t understand what declining enrollment is doing to your finances—or that enrollment has been declining year after year.
You have to build that base of knowledge, then keep the experiences you want for kids and staff front and center. We’ve worked in districts where schools had only one section per grade, which meant teachers didn’t even have grade-level colleagues to plan with. That’s a lonely experience for a teacher.
We should want better opportunities for everyone. Talk about what those opportunities could look like and let people help build the vision for where you’re going.
It’s hard, but you can get there. And it all has to come back to what we want for our kids.
Jessica
I love that. Gaby, thank you so much for taking the time to share all of this.
For those watching, you can find this and all our other video episodes on YouTube, LinkedIn, and your favorite podcast platforms by searching for The Delta.
Gaby
Thanks so much for having me, Jess.
Let’s Get Muddy
- For more guidance on how to respond to enrollment declines, check out this resource by Civic Solutions Group: Public school enrollment is in freefall. How will states and districts respond?
- For more on school closures, including what states and districts can learn from New Orleans’s experience, check out our previous Delta: More Districts Are Facing School Closures. Here’s What We Can Learn from New Orleans.
