Public school enrollment is declining across North Carolina and the country.
In Guilford County Schools, officials say the drop this year is worse than they’d anticipated.
They were expecting a decline based on projections from last February, and estimated they’d serve around 65,000 students this year. But on the 20th day of school, that number was off by nearly 2,000.
Deputy Superintendent of Business and Operations Julius Monk attributes the drop to the housing market, a rise in alternative schooling choices and the county’s declining birth rate.
“As that continues to go down, and we have more students graduating at a higher rate from school, and we're not replacing them at the same amount, it's causing our entire enrollment to go down," Monk said at a recent board of education meeting.
Guilford County’s population of school-aged children has only gone up by about 400 since 2020. Meanwhile, the number of residents 18 and older has increased by roughly 23,000.
Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools and Asheboro City Schools are also experiencing declines. In each case, the change will mean less state funding next year and likely budget cuts.