eNewMexican

SFPS trying to draw back students who left district during pandemic

Enrollment drop of over 600 kids means millions of dollars less in state funding

By Jessica Pollard jpollard@sfnewmexican.com

“Class is Back.”

Santa Fe Public Schools makes the announcement in bold typography in a recently produced video, with bright music playing in the background.

It’s a quick clip signaling a broader effort to get kids back into public school classrooms Aug. 6, the first day of the new year, following the exit of about 615 students from the district — 84 from El Dorado Community School alone — in 2020-21.

The drop means a loss of several million dollars in state funding.

Administrators also are working to

spread the word about the district’s new K-12 virtual school, Desert Sage Academy, through videos and social media, and some principals have been reaching out to families who had kids enrolled in their schools in past years to ensure they have registration information — just in case.

Educators are sure to mention registration options during public school events, district spokesman Cody Dynarski said. “Any chance we get when we’re out.”

In May, the district tracked down every student who withdrew amid more than a year of fully remote learning or hybrid learning — a combination of lessons in the classroom and online — due to the coronavirus pandemic. Officials learned the largest share of those students, 38 percent, left for other public districts in the state, such as Albuquerque and Rio Rancho, or a state-chartered school. About 21 percent transferred to a private school, 14 percent chose home schooling and another 14 percent moved to another state.

Smaller numbers of students dropped out, moved out of the U.S., chose to earn a GED certificate or were withdrawn because they missed too many days.

The Santa Fe district wasn’t alone in its loss of students during the pandemic.

“At the end of the day, the whole state lost about 12,000 kids,” then-Superintendent Veronica García said at a school board meeting earlier this year.

Her successor, Superintendent Hilario “Larry” Chavez, has said he plans to rebuild enrollment. In a recent interview, he said the district would increase its community outreach through social media, radio and video.

Crystal Ybarra, the district’s new chief equity, diversity and engagement officer, also hopes to get some of those students back in classroom seats. And, she said, it appears a lot of the kids she works with are ready to reenroll.

“We have reached out very directly to the families,” she said.

Ybarra worked with attendance coaches and a social services specialist during the school year and through June to find and contact students who were not logging into their lessons or had other needs. She also helped track down the whereabouts of the 600-plus kids who withdrew.

She said her department keeps in touch with “any of those students who were on our radar for attendance or an unidentified need that might be required for the student or family.”

A big barrier for many families during the pandemic was a lack of internet service or a poor connection that couldn’t support several kids — and often their parents — working online at the same time.

A home school boom

Sheaffer Palermo, a mother of five, said she withdrew her three children from Amy Biehl Community School at the end of the 2019-20 school year when they battled a shoddy internet connection and long hours of online learning.

It wasn’t an easy choice. Palermo conducted her own research to find a home school curriculum that suited all of her children as she headed back to work.

The time spent teaching her kids subjects like math using real-life examples was a privilege, she said in a recent interview. “I feel really lucky to be part of a family that has some flexibility around school, work and employment.”

As the parent of a child who needs extra services, she sees how public school systems put kids in boxes. But she also knows it would take more resources to meet all students’ needs, she added.

“It’s a Catch-22 for sure.”

All but one of her children, a 12-year-old daughter who will enter seventh grade at Monte del Sol Charter School, will remain at home this fall, Palermo said. She will consider sending them back to the public school district when they can attend without masks or capacity limits.

Districts across the state are still waiting for updated guidance from the New Mexico Public Education Department on COVID-safe protocols for the upcoming year.

Census data shows home schooling doubled during the pandemic — in New Mexico and across the nation.

Rebecca Cohen, who runs the nonprofit Homeschool Classroom in Santa Fe, which provides education services for kids ages 5-14 up to three days a week and consultations on home schooling, has seen growth in the local home schooling community during the coronavirus pandemic.

Still, the trend hasn’t resulted in a demand for her classroom services. In fact, she said, she took a financial hit from the state’s reduced capacity limits for in-person services.

She predicts the turn away from in-person learning in schools gave parents an opportunity to see education in action and spurred interest in teaching their own children.

“Their children have these experiences of personalized, individualized curriculum learning,” Cohen said, “where they feel good about learning because there’s so much less stress on testing.”

Some private schools in Santa Fe also saw a spike in admissions interest when public schools turned to online learning.

The tiny Tutorial School in Santa Fe offered outdoor learning, as opposed to online lessons, in response to the pandemic.

“It’s hard to know if the increase in interest was because we were doing school in person and safely, or if the reason was there were other [private] schools that shut down. … It’s all conjecture,” said Moe Zimmerberg, who holds several positions at the school.

But The Tutorial School, serving just over a dozen students, also saw its own enrollment decline last year. Some older students stopped taking classes to get a job during the pandemic, while others headed back to public school.

Zimmerberg sees the pandemic as a pivotal moment for students and families considering options other than traditional public schools.

Administrators at Santa Fe Preparatory School in part credited an increased interest in admissions last year with the school’s “high-quality” online curriculum.

Currently, its application numbers are in line with previous five-year trends.

Financial hit of fewer kids

For years, enrollment at Santa Fe Public Schools, like that at districts statewide, has trended downward. During the 2019-20 school year, the district counted 12,979 students in its ranks, while five years earlier, the number was closer to 14,500.

The difficulties of pandemic learning further lowered the numbers, ushering in an era of uncertainty in a state where public school funding is overwhelmingly based on enrollment.

When the Santa Fe school board approved a budget for 2021-22 in May, administrators were bracing for a $6 million deficit caused by withdrawals.

It’s an impact some state legislators feared when they crafted a bill during this year’s regular session that would have held districts “harmless” for enrollment declines heading into the new school year. The bill died in a committee.

Santa Fe County’s smaller, more rural Pojoaque Valley School District saw a decline of about 5 percent of its students, primarily to home schooling, Superintendent Sondra Adams said.

The drop has led to a nearly $600,000 shortfall heading into the coming year.

Adams has seen a gradual decline in enrollment in her district in recent years — she cited lower birthrates countywide — but nothing like this.

Many of the kids who left the district were some of the youngest students and some of the oldest, she said. “You have more stay-at-home parents when kids are younger. … High school was really hard for online learning, and they needed to help financially support their families.”

Adams said the district turned to “right-sizing” staff — eliminating positions — to make up for student losses.

Last week, the Pojoaque district kicked off a campaign to try to get those students back, using an automated call system to let parents know enrollment is open.

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2021-07-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://enewmexican.com/article/281535114018287

Santa Fe New Mexican