Read this today: Public Schools lost more than 1 Million students during pandemic.
School districts across the country are shuttering buildings in response to public schools losing more than a million students over the past few years. Data from the U.S. Education Department shows a drop of around 3% in public school enrollment from fall 2019-2020. At the same time, charter school enrollment was up 7%, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Among the factors prompting the changes since COVID are an increase in home schooling, more families utilizing private and charter education, and an overall decline in birth rates.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/public-schools-lost-more-than-one-million-students-during-pandemic-11672881798
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We'd already chosen to do private school pre-pandemic, but the swelling of private schools we are in and around us and the year(s) long waitlists is very noticeable and causing it's own strain. In a lot of ways the private schools are regressing to some of the negatives of public schools (bigger classrooms, suboptimal teacher:student ratio, etc.)