After years of a pandemic that left them flush with cash, school districts across the country are facing budget shortfalls and pressures from multiple fronts.
A $122 billion federal funding stream meant to help schools recover from the pandemic dried up in September, leaving schools without funding for teachers, summer school and other supports that have funded pandemic recovery efforts over the past three years.
At the same time, student enrollment declines are catching up in some areas as a result of low birth rates and the growing school choice movement.
The result: School districts across the country will have to make difficult decisions about cuts that will affect millions of households as early as next school year. Cuts postponed in many areas during the pandemic could hinder the recovery of American students who have largely not made up for losses caused by the pandemic.
“I worry that too many state and local leaders are worrying about the looming fiscal cliff, and now they are faced with truly painful decisions,” said Thomas S. Dee, a Stanford University professor and student researcher. Enrollment trends.
The cuts are spread across rich and poor areas. In Washington state’s Edmonds School District, an upper-middle-income area north of Seattle, music classes were targeted by district cuts, and a local foundation raised more than $200,000 to save them. In the upscale suburb of Montgomery County, Maryland, the school district is slightly increasing class sizes to save money.
But experts say the cuts will be felt most in low-income and urban school districts, areas that received more federal pandemic aid and have been hit hardest by declining student enrollment.
As students leave the public school system, school districts receive less state and federal funding. Losing too many students can strain a district’s budget, creating fixed costs. For example, salaries and benefits account for about 80% of a typical budget.
Enrollment rates have been declining in many areas for years. But a study found that between 2019 and 2022, U.S. public schools will lose more than 1 million students. About half of the decline can be explained by population trends, but most of the rest, Dr. Dee said, is driven by continued interest in private schools and homeschooling.
“It has been clear for at least two years that declining enrollment has become the new normal,” he said.
Costs have also risen due to high inflation in recent years. Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University’s Institute for Education Studies, said many districts have given larger raises than usual to stay competitive, but now it’s harder to maintain them.
At the same time, many states are facing slowing revenue growth and “may not really be in a position to provide districts with a larger increase than usual,” Dr. Roza said.
Some regions have used pandemic aid to plug holes in their budgets, making the current situation particularly dangerous.
The same was true for Minneapolis, which suffered a decline in student numbers and a deficit of more than $100 million. About 300 faculty positions are being laid off.
Without the additional funding, Minneapolis would likely have had to lay off staff sooner or make other dramatic changes just as students were trying to recover from the pandemic, said Ibrahima Diop, the district’s chief financial officer.
The district is determined to continue investing in education. “It was something everyone had to do,” Mr. Diop said. Because that meant supporting the students,” Mr. Diop said.
Hartford, Connecticut, offered a similar compromise. The district used stimulus funds to fund 260 positions, including school counselors, social workers and academic teachers. It’s a position officials have heard “loud and clear” that they need to support students, Leslie Torres said. – Rodriguez, Superintendent.
But the district, which has been grappling with budget problems and declining enrollment, must now move employees to other positions to reduce layoffs. “The districts facing the most severe cliffs right now are the ones that have spent the most money on services and programs for students.” Dr. Torres-Rodriguez said.
Some districts have tried to head off potential layoffs and are even planning program cuts.
Baltimore City Public Schools officials have been “very cautious from the beginning” to make investments to avoid sudden cuts after relief funds run out, said Alison Perkins-Cohen, the district’s principal. District officials did not use the money to hire new full-time employees at the schools or increase teacher salaries, she said.
Instead, Baltimore offered private lessons, paid teachers one-time stipends and upgraded bathrooms, science labs and HVAC systems.
But Baltimore still has to cut back on some tutoring contracts and may have to scale back summer school, a program that used to be federally funded, next year.
Waterbury, Connecticut, also was able to avoid layoffs because it used relief funds to try not to hire many new employees, said Verna Ruffin, the district’s superintendent.
But Dr. Ruffin said officials will no longer be able to offer 24/7 virtual tutoring programs to students next school year. And he should scale back after-school enrichment programs that give students opportunities to visit museums and attend plays and concerts.
Birmingham, Alabama, is one school district that has made tremendous academic progress since the pandemic, but now must decide which programs to keep.
An analysis by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama found that programs that provided students with additional instructional time during fall, winter and spring break had good results.
But the district will now have to cut one session over winter break and can no longer afford to pay teachers the higher $60 an hour to participate, Birmingham Superintendent Mark Sullivan said.
Free after-school programs that had been subsidized with pandemic aid are set to move back to a paid model, a change Dr. Sullivan dislikes. He knows that the cost of about $160 a month for one student could be the difference between paying the bills for many poor and working-class parents in his area.
The district also must eliminate 70 positions funded by stimulus money.
Dr. Sullivan said she doesn’t regret hiring mental health counselors, math and reading interventionists and other specialists on a short-term basis to help students get through the worst of the pandemic. The federal aid represented a rare opportunity for his underfunded district, where nearly 90 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
“If we can provide students with the support they desperately need, even if it’s only for a short period of time, I think it’s worth it,” he said.
