Enrollment in U.S. public schools plummeted during the pandemic, with a loss of over 1.2 million public school students from the 2019-2022— that is 2.5% of the public-school population — grades Kindergarten through 12th grade.
Some of those children left for private school, homeschooling or moved out of state. But for years, no one has known for sure where they went. In many cases, publicly available data gives no indication.
An investigation by The Associated Press, Stanford University's Big Local News project and Stanford Professor Thomas Dee sought to find out how many students who left public schools are still unaccounted for.
Some may be young students whose parents have decided not to start them in formal school.
Some may be taught at home, either formally or informally, and their families haven't registered them as home-schooled.
In North Carolina more than 12,000 students who left public school during the pandemic cannot be accounted for by increased enrollment in private and home-schools or changes in the school-age population.
