An Analysis of Preliminary Public School Enrollment in 2020-21 (November 2020) Page 3 of 26
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
An Analysis of Preliminary Public School Enrollment in 2020-21 November 2020 Table of Contents Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................................................3 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................4 Results ........................................................................................................................................................................5 Enrollment by Grade ..............................................................................................................................................5 Cohort Persistence Rate Analysis ...........................................................................................................................7 New vs. Continuing Student Analysis .....................................................................................................................9 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................................... 10 Appendices .............................................................................................................................................................. 11 Appendix A: Total Enrollment by District, 2019-20 and 2020-21 ........................................................................ 11 Appendix B: Total Pre-Kindergarten Enrollment by District, 2019-20 and 2020-21 ........................................... 17 Appendix C: Total Kindergarten Enrollment by District, 2019-20 and 2020-21 .................................................. 22 Executive Summary The Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) used an initial, preliminary dataset from the October 2020 Public School Information System (PSIS) collection to conduct an analysis of statewide declines in student enrollment. • This preliminary estimate indicates a decline in total enrollment of 15,436 students (nearly 3 percent) from 527,829 in 2019-20 to 512,393 in 2020-21. The rate of this one-year decline is similar to declines seen previously over a five-year period. • The two school-entering grades of pre-kindergarten and kindergarten saw the largest declines. o Compared to October 2019, public pre-kindergarten enrollment fell in October 2020 by 3,727 students from 18,829 to 15,102 – a 20 percent decline in a single year. The decline in pre- kindergarten enrollment was disproportionately greater among Connecticut’s 10 Alliance: Opportunity Districts. o Kindergarten enrollment fell by 4,343 students from 36,566 in October 2019 to 32,223 in October 2020 – a nearly 12 percent decline in a single year. The decline in kindergarten was disproportionately greater among Connecticut’s 33 Alliance Districts. • Grades 1 and 2 reflect the lowest cohort persistence rates over the past five years. • The greatest declines being in the earliest grades may suggest that parents are choosing to delay the start of public schooling for their youngest children due to the COVID-19 pandemic. • Additional factors contributing to the decline include an increase in the number of parents opting to home school their children and fewer new students enrolling in Grades 1 through 12. • Please note that these analyses are preliminary and subject to change because the October PSIS collection is still in process with districts continuing to make amendments to their submissions. Final enrollment counts for the 2020-21 school year will be published on EdSight by the end of February 2021. An Analysis of Preliminary Public School Enrollment in 2020-21 (November 2020) Page 3 of 26 Introduction This report is an analysis of preliminary estimates of student enrollment for the 2020-21 school year. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in-person classes were cancelled effective March 17, 2020 for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year, and all districts switched to fully remote instruction. For the start of the 2020-21 school year, districts opened school in one of three learning models: fully in-person where all students attend school in-person on all days; hybrid where all students attend school in-person on some but not all days; or fully remote where all students receive instruction remotely through technology or other means on all days. Since reopening in late August/early September, many districts every week have changed their learning models based either on a district schedule (e.g., planned change in week 4 from hybrid to fully in-person) or on local health conditions (e.g., change from fully in-person to remote for two weeks due to increased infections and positivity rate in the local community). Regardless of the learning model, parents were also given the choice to opt their child into full-time remote instruction. On September 4, 2020, the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) established a new weekly data collection regarding a district’s Learning Model and Enrollment. This collection required all districts and approved private special education providers (APSEP) to report their learning model for the prior week by grade (PK-12) and their total aggregate student enrollment. As a result, the CSDE received preliminary estimates of total student enrollment statewide as early as September 16 and weekly thereafter. This was much sooner than in prior years when the earliest estimates of statewide enrollment would only become available sometime in November, after the first round of district submissions through the October PSIS collection. While the October PSIS collection serves as the official public school enrollment count for the CSDE and is reported on the EdSight data portal, these early estimates from the weekly aggregate enrollment collection indicated that statewide enrollment in 2020-21 was trending substantially lower than expected. For instance, Connecticut’s PK-12 public school enrollment in 2019-20 was 527,829. This was approximately 3.4 percent lower than the enrollment in 2014-15 of 546,347. Over this five-year period, Connecticut’s enrollment declined by 18,518 students. By contrast, the weekly aggregate student counts were indicating that compared to 2019-20, total enrollment in 2020-21 may have declined by about fourteen to fifteen thousand students in a single year. Therefore, the CSDE is using an initial, preliminary dataset from the October 2020 PSIS collection to confirm the declines seen in the weekly aggregate collection and gain greater insights into the nature of this decline. To An Analysis of Preliminary Public School Enrollment in 2020-21 (November 2020) Page 4 of 26 reiterate, the 2020-21 enrollment numbers used in this report represent preliminary estimates and are expected to change before final results are released on EdSight in February 2021. Results Enrollment by Grade The table below presents the enrollment by grade for the seven most recent years, including a preliminary estimate of the 2020-21 enrollment. This preliminary estimate reflects a decline in total enrollment of 15,436 students i.e., from 527,829 in 2019-20 to 512,393 in 2020-21. This is a single year decline of nearly three percent when a similar 3.4 percent decline was observed over a five-year period. See Appendix A for district enrollment for 2019-20 and 2020-21. Table 1: Statewide Enrollment Trend by Grade PK-12 (Preliminary GRADE 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20 Estimate) 2020-21 Pre-Kindergarten 18,344 18,671 18,763 18,737 18,973 18,829 15,102 Kindergarten 37,661 36,657 36,639 36,239 35,837 36,566 32,223 Grade 1 38,850 37,842 36,923 36,820 36,437 36,047 35,732 Grade 2 39,676 38,569 37,896 36,930 36,681 36,455 35,499 Grade 3 39,160 39,684 38,787 38,130 37,139 36,915 35,997 Grade 4 39,846 39,219 40,001 39,047 38,309 37,430 36,640 Grade 5 39,992 39,851 39,589 40,319 39,247 38,609 37,142 Grade 6 41,032 40,116 40,032 39,840 40,455 39,537 38,333 Grade 7 40,412 41,217 40,348 40,380 40,110 40,728 39,313 Grade 8 41,450 40,585 41,389 40,569 40,583 40,449 40,642 Grade 9 44,968 44,235 43,379 43,578 42,977 43,527 42,635 Grade 10 42,774 42,426 42,195 41,482 42,057 41,313 41,235 Grade 11 41,188 41,397 41,144 41,088 40,178 40,410 40,052 Grade 12 40,996 41,346 41,814 41,866 41,629 41,014 41,848 Total 546,349 541,815 538,899 535,025 530,612 527,829 512,393 The two school entering grades of pre-kindergarten and kindergarten reflect the largest declines. In 2019-20, 18,829 students were enrolled in public school pre-kindergarten offerings. Based on the preliminary 2020-21 estimates, however, 3,727 fewer students (i.e., 15,102 total) enrolled in pre-kindergarten. This represents a nearly 20 percent decline in a single year. The decline in pre-kindergarten enrollment was disproportionately An Analysis of Preliminary Public School Enrollment in 2020-21 (November 2020) Page 5 of 26 greater among Connecticut’s 10 lowest performing districts also referred to as the Alliance: Opportunity Districts1. These 10 districts, which enroll approximately 30 percent of the pre-kindergarten students, saw their pre-kindergarten enrollment decline by almost 25 percent from 2019-20 to 2020-21, which was above the statewide average decline of nearly 20 percent (Table 2). See Appendix B for district-level pre-kindergarten enrollment in 2019-20 and 2020-21. Table 2: Pre-Kindergarten Enrollment Decline by District Type District Type 2019-20